Halloween marked the arrival of the holiday party season, and a new Kansas law makes it easier for law enforcement officers to go after adults providing alcohol to minors.

The law also increases penalties for minors who are caught possessing or consuming alcoholic beverages.

Under the new law, adults “unlawfully hosting” a party where minors under the age of 18 are allowed to drink can be cited for a misdemeanor and be ordered by a judge to pay a minimum fine of $250.

“Before, there could be a party at a house and if the parents were there they couldn’t be charged if you couldn’t prove they were furnishing alcohol,” said Pete Bodyk, chief of the Kansas Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Traffic Safety. “They could say they didn’t know about it.”

Moreover, minors caught drinking or possessing alcohol for the second time will lose their driver’s licenses for 90 days. The suspension increases to a year on the third or subsequent offenses. Previously, the law only allowed for 30-day suspensions no matter how many times the violation occurred. There also are additional fines and penalties.

The law was passed by the Kansas Legislature in reaction to an accident that killed Paul Riggs, a Lenexa teenager who died while driving away from a party at which he and other minors had been drinking. The law also has been referred to as “Paul’s Law.”

Lenexa Police didn’t waste time acting under the law, Bodyk said. A few days after it went into effect July 1, police raided a party and arrested an adult, said Bodyk, the former head of the Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control office.

Lawrence Police have not yet enforced the law, police spokesman Sgt. Dan Ward said. The city is developing an ordinance that will mirror the state law, he said. Under a municipal ordinance, police can handle a case more quickly and with less paperwork, Ward said.

The law is a good first step, but it doesn’t go far enough, said Jen Jordan, director of prevention at the Douglas County Regional Prevention Center.

The hosting law doesn’t allow adults to be cited if youths 18 through 20 years old are found drinking at a party, even though the legal drinking age is 21.

Another provision that was struck from the original bill would have made it illegal for parents to provide cereal malt beverages (3.2 beer) to their own children at home. A mother from the Kansas City area convinced legislators it was safer for children to openly drink at home than somewhere else, Jordan said.

“Kansas is the only state that allows that,” Jordan said. “Parents need to remember that kids who use alcohol do worse in school and they are more likely to use other drugs. There are a lot of problems associated with alcohol use.”

Despite its faults, Bodyk hopes Paul’s Law will increase highway safety this holiday season. He noted that nationally, alcohol-related crashes are the leading cause of death and disability in the 15-to-24 age group. In 2003, 16 people under 21 were killed and 420 injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes in Kansas.