New Twist in Teen Drinking : ‘Drop Parties’ Leave O.C. Industrial Areas a Mess

The yellow flyer began circulating at Fountain Valley High School about midweek. “Party,” it announced in letters scrawled above a drawing of beer being poured into the gaping mouth of Garfield, the cartoon cat. “Four kegs.”

The accompanying map, however, did not lead to a park or to a house of teen-agers whose parents were out of town for the weekend. Instead, it led to a dead-end street in a Fountain Valley industrial park, where high school students set up beer kegs and blasting stereos in a fenced parking lot.

Such gatherings--known as “drop parties” because organizers drop into an industrial area and start partying--are the latest twist in high school drinking, according to police in several Orange County cities. Hundreds of teen-agers flock to the gatherings, eager to pay an admission charge of $2 to $5 to party beside deserted warehouses and office buildings.

“I’ve never seen as many kids at a party as I did this particular evening. There was an unbelievable amount of beer,” said Huntington Beach Police Sgt. Luis Ochoa, describing a recent drop party that drew about 900 people. “The street was blocked with kids and their cars, and the area was totally littered with trash.”

Just this weekend, Huntington Beach police were hit by yet another drop party--this one at the fenced-in site of a tool manufacturing company in the industrialized north end of the city.

This time, police were ready: Tipped off in advance about the party, patrol units raided the area around 8 p.m. Saturday--long before the beer blast was to have hit its peak--and arrested five juveniles who police said had cut through gate locks on the Business Drive premises.

In a scene that local law enforcement officials say has become all too familiar, the Huntington Beach police also confiscated alcohol from the many carloads of youths that had flooded the area, and warned the estimated 200 to 300 party-goers to stay away from the site.

Though high school beer parties are hardly unusual, police say drop parties pose problems beyond drinking and driving. It takes a lot of police officers to persuade hundreds of tipsy teen-agers to leave a party scene peacefully, Ochoa said.

There have been no drop party riots so far, Ochoa said, “but the potential for problems is much greater in these situations.”

Patrolling Industrial Parks

Police departments have responded by patrolling industrial parks on weekend nights and by sometimes making arrests when they find the parties.

Fountain Valley police also had heard about the April 29 party advertised in the flyer and arrested 28 young people, 20 of whom were younger than 18. The adults were cited for trespassing.

Huntington Beach police, alerted to a March 31 drop party in the northwest part of the city, sent undercover officers to infiltrate it. Seven people were arrested, including 19-year-old James Burnett, believed to be the party’s organizer. Burnett was charged with six misdemeanor counts including trespassing and providing alcohol to minors, Ochoa said, and the other six arrested were turned over to juvenile authorities.

Police have broken up six or seven other drop parties in Huntington Beach this year, he added.

In Santa Ana, police began being noticing drop parties about 3 years ago, Police Department spokeswoman Maureen Thomas said. Police break up two or three of the parties a year without arresting anyone, Thomas said. The last drop party spotted by police was in early April, she said.

Younger Party-Goers

But unlike this year’s drop parties in Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach, Thomas said, Santa Ana’s gatherings have been attended by college-age rather than high school students.

Fountain Valley High School Principal Mike Kasler, whose staff told police about the party flyer, said he is troubled by the increasing sophistication of those who publicize and organize the parties.

“You used to hear about things like this primarily at the college level,” Kasler said. “Now it’s surfacing more and more at high schools.”

Authorities believe young people pay to party at industrial parks because the parks are deserted after dark and far from homeowners, who are known to summon police at the first shriek of a stereo.

But police say industrial parks also serve the interests of party organizers, who post themselves at the parking lot gate to make sure everyone pays an admission fee.

“There was no need to trespass” in a deserted industrial area, said Fountain Valley Police Sgt. Larry Griswold. “The only reason they needed the fenced area was so they could charge. . . . The kids are the ones being set up, not just for the loss of their money, but for their arrest.”

When Huntington Beach undercover officers arrested Burnett, he had about $450 in his pockets, Ochoa said. “It’s just a new gimmick to make money at someone else’s expense,” Ochoa said of the drop parties.

Owners Pay Price

Among those who pay the price for the parties are the owners of the party sites. A drop party organizer in Huntington Beach decided the fenced parking lot of Kingston Machine Tool Manufacturing was the perfect place to gather, leaving owner Stan Lin with the trash from four drop parties in the last 3 months.

“It was a mess,” Lin said. “Cups, papers, beer bottles all over the place.”

Drop party organizers repeatedly cut the lock on Lin’s gate, and Burnett even told police he had Lin’s permission to hold a party there, Ochoa said.

Company employees cleaned up after the first three parties, then Huntington Beach police sent officers to infiltrate the fourth, Lin said. And the city sent a five-person crew to clean up afterward, Lin said. The drop parties stopped after the arrests.

Lin said he can only guess why his business has been so popular with the drop party crowd. “You cannot see it from the road--maybe that’s it,” Lin said of his business. “I wish I knew why.”