Students and Booze : Breath Analyzer Sniffs Out Liquor at Oak Park School Functions

Larry Misel won’t need to line up a date for Saturday night’s Oak Park High School homecoming dance--just a needle on a dial, to a reading of 0.00.

Misel is assistant principal at the Agoura school. He will be accompanied to the dance by a portable breath-tester that has been calibrated to sniff out alcohol.

Youngsters caught by the hand-held device will be kicked out of the Sunset Hills Country Club in Thousand Oaks, where Saturday’s formal dance is being held. Next week, they will also be temporarily kicked out of school.

“It’s the best prevention there is,” said Misel of the pocket-sized, $80 detector. “We’re trying to tell kids we’re not going to tolerate drugs or alcohol at school events.”

Oak Park officials put their new breath-analysis device to work last month at football games after experimenting last year with a larger machine that they borrowed from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Used at Other Schools

The 360-student school is the first campus in the area to use a breath tester, although such devices have been used in recent years at high schools in Arcadia, Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach and Fallbrook.

Oak Park High Principal Bob Sutton said Thursday that he authorized the crackdown after learning that weekend drinking is common among many teen-agers in the affluent, 2,000-home community.

“We didn’t want it carried over into school,” Sutton said.

So far, he said, only one student has been asked to take the breath test. That occurred three weeks ago when spectators at a school football game pointed out a 10th-grade girl who reeked of liquor.

The girl failed the breath test and her parents were called to take her home, Sutton said.

But other Oak Park students are critical of the breath analyzer.

“I know a lot of people who don’t go to dances because of them,” said Randy Hill, a 15-year-old 10th-grader. “You go to dance and have fun without that thing creeping over you.”

Complaints of Overreaction

Eleventh-grader Jon Fishstein, 16, said he feels officials have overreacted to teen-age drinking because of Oak Park High’s small size.

“Use of a Breathalyzer suggests a bigger problem than there is,” Fishstein said. “One person comes to school drunk and they think it’s a big problem because that’s 0.36% of our student body.”

Student body President Danna Bloom, 17, said Thursday that many of her classmates share that view.

“Many kids are resentful and offended and won’t show up at dances because of it,” said Bloom, a senior. “We’re not alcoholics or drug addicts. We’re teen-agers.

“The parents seem to think Oak Park has a major alcohol problem. But it’s an invasion of our rights.”

Chuck Monico, a community activist whose two teen-agers attend the high school, said parents see the breath tests as a necessary invasion, however.

“Sure, we’re giving up some rights along the way. But we’re just trying to protect children,” Monico said.

Other area schools, meantime, are viewing the Oak Park crackdown with more than passing interest.

“We’re exploring all options,” said Joe Andrews, pupils services director at the Hart Union High School District in Newhall.