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Santa Barbara police Officer Mark Corbett arrived at the Santa Barbara High School campus on a Friday night last fall to find dozens of teenagers drinking, smoking marijuana and urinating in bushes.
He was following up on a tip that underage students contracted for a party bus to take them around town, and would be drinking.
The tip was right on the money.
Corbett, a nightlife enforcement officer with the Police Department, works closely with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and was partnered up with ABC Officer Brian Parsons that night.
It was Nov. 21, the Friday night before Thanksgiving break, and the two officers hid out in one of the school’s office areas waiting for the bus to arrive.
“I wasn’t surprised that the tip was real, but I was surprised by the volume of people there,” Corbett told Noozhawk.
At about 9 p.m., a bus pulled into the roundabout near the campus entrance off East Anapamu Street, and the crowd of junior high and high school students — 62 of them in all, ages 13 to 16 — piled on.
Walking onto the bus was “like a scene out of a Cheech & Chong movie,” Corbett recalled.
The officers boarded the bus, made contact with the driver, and realized there were several crimes taking place, most obviously alcohol and marijuana use by minors, police Sgt. Riley Harwood said.
Additional officers were summoned for backup, and parents were called to come pick up their children — a process that took about two hours.
“Once all the kids were taken care of, they went through the bus and found lots of items of contraband,” said Harwood, who listed “bottles of hard alcohol, marijuana, marijuana paraphernalia, cigarettes and lighters, items like condoms, markers that are commonly used for graffiti, and a large bag of Solo cups.”
“So, a whole bunch of party supplies,” he said.
It turns out the bus was booked by a 14-year-old girl, a ninth-grader, who used a parent’s credit card to pay for it.
The girl could face criminal charges related to booking and promoting the bus on social media, such as contributing to the delinquency of minors, police said.
Investigators believe the parent didn’t know what kind of event the girl was planning, Harwood said.
That case, and that of a boy allegedly caught in possession of alcohol, were both forwarded to the Santa Barbara County Juvenile Probation Department.
No other minors at the scene were cited or investigated, partly because officers “had their hands full” trying to keep 60-plus kids in place and under control, Harwood said.
“Given the totality of circumstances, dealing with each individual kid was a lower priority than the larger issue of all those unsupervised kids and what they’re doing on a bus,” he said.
Police also investigated the bus driver and forwarded the case to the District Attorney’s Office for possible criminal charges.
The case alleges the driver violated the state vehicle code for allowing open containers of alcohol in a vehicle, violated state public utilities codes related to alcohol, and contributed to the delinquency of minors, Harwood said.
No charges had been filed as of Friday.
More important, the incident was a catalyst for the Police Department to start investigating the bus companies themselves, particularly for underage drinking violations.
Private transportation companies, including those that offer party buses, are licensed and regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission. Investigations are mostly complaint-driven but the agency can hand out administrative penalties that range from fines to revoking licenses.
Corbett said he is working with an investigator at the Public Utilities Commission, but it’s unclear if there is an active investigation against the bus company involved in the Nov. 21 case.
Although Noozhawk knows the name of the local party bus company involved in this case, police would not confirm it, due to the pending charges against the driver and the potential PUC investigation.
Rules for Passenger Carriers, Including Party Buses
It is illegal for minors to drink alcohol, even on board a chartered bus and even if there are passengers over the age of 21, said Eric Onnen, who is familiar with the protocols as CEO of Santa Barbara Airbus.
“If the operator is following the rules set up by the Public Utilities Commission, the incident that occurred would not have occurred,” he said. “It requires the company to follow the rules and the driver on the scene to follow the rules.”
If anyone breaks the rules, such as minors drinking on board, the driver is required to return customers to the pickup location and terminate the contract, according to the PUC.
Any bus can be a party bus and the same rules apply, but some vehicles are specifically designed for the purpose, Onnen said. These vehicles often have privacy dividers between the driver and passengers, video and music systems, dancing poles and bench seating like a stretch limousine.
“What we see out there in the marketplace is the party bus thing seems to be more specialized now,” he said. “There are operators who do specifically that kind of business.”
At one point, Santa Barbara Airbus built its own party bus, planning to tap into the market of wine tasting and event transportation. But Onnen said the endeavor had its own issues with underage groups booking the vehicle.
“Regulations were evolving, and in fact we made our own requirements to eliminate some problems we were having with underage activity,” he said. “When we enforced all the regulations, we basically had none of the underage users contract with us anymore.”
The company sold the vehicle about a year ago.
“It was a great bus, but we just weren’t doing enough business with it, and part of the reason was we would not bend on the rules side of it, especially for underage customers,” Onnen said.
Violating the rules can put the entire business’ license in jeopardy, not just the party bus aspect, he said.
“We have the rest of our business,” Onnen said. “We just wouldn’t do that — we wouldn’t take a risk.”
There are some companies that provide party bus-like services along with other transportation, such as the Land Shark, which are very cooperative with law enforcement and have never had violations related to underage drinking, Corbett said.
And then there are the companies getting caught with loads of teenagers drinking inside.
On Feb. 18, a Wednesday night, Corbett stopped a bus from the same company as the November incident — with the same driver at the wheel — and found a group of underage exchange students on board, with alcohol all over the vehicle.
“It was the exact same circumstances,” Corbett said.
“I think they think that just by claiming ignorance they will absolve themselves.”
Only two of the 30 or so people were over 21 in the February incident, and it’s unclear if additional charges will be pursued in the second case, against the driver or any of the passengers.
Oversight of Party Buses
Party bus regulation and oversight falls to the Public Utilities Commission and its investigations are mostly complaint-driven.
Transportation companies are required to be licensed and insured to conduct this specific type of transportation, which is administered by the PUC.
Local police regulate taxi and pedicab services, but not pre-arranged ride services such as limousines and charter buses, Harwood said.
“It’s tough because they don’t have local inspectors doing that kind of thing,” he said.
The state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control doesn’t license or regulate party buses either, even though alcohol often is involved.
In California, limousines and buses can offer alcoholic beverages to customers who are old enough as long as the cost of alcohol is included in the cost of the vehicle rental, said Leslie Pond, head of the Ventura District of the ABC, which covers southern Santa Barbara County.
ABC officers do typically respond to incidents if minors are involved with alcohol, however, and the ABC works closely with SBPD’s nighttime enforcement team, usually partnering up when responding to incidents, he said.
That’s why, when Corbett responded to the party bus that picked up passengers at Santa Barbara High, Parsons was with him.
The ABC doesn’t get many complaints for party buses — much more so for pubs, bars and special events — but it could be because they’re moving targets and hard to detect, Pond said.
Santa Barbara police want to expand the investigation beyond this one party bus company, and may even organize stings with young customers.
Police want to partner up with the PUC for more local enforcement of violating public utility codes, since the potential state consequences are harsher.
“I think a lot of the enforcement teeth probably come from the CPUC, and that’s why I’m anxious to meet with an investigator,” Corbett said. “The CPUC has limited resources and can’t be in every city and oversee regulations for all these buses, how are they able to be boots on the ground?
“The administrative things have more teeth — they could get a citation and buy their way out of it for a $500 civil assessment, that doesn’t hurt too bad,” he added.
While a ticket may not be much of a deterrent, PUC penalties can include thousands of dollars in fines and license suspensions for long periods of time — even revoking licenses altogether.
“Obviously our goal is to have a significant impact on underage drinking and all the ills that can come from that,” Corbett said.
Dave Cash, superintendent of the Santa Barbara Unified School District, found out about the November incident two months later, and believes he never would have heard about it if the bus had made its pickup anywhere other than a school campus.
The K-12 district partners with community organizations to provide prevention, intervention and treatment programs to help students deal with substance use and abuse. Most students are referred into the programs by other people, usually friends, teachers, parents or even friends of parents.
These efforts are focused on secondary schools now, but the district plans to implement more counseling and interventions for elementary students in the future.
“We’re all looking out for the best of our youth, and I think what we sometimes forget is some of our youth are going to be wayward, and it really is our job to first educate and not discipline,” said Mitch Torina, the district’s director of pupil services.
Trying out riskier behavior is part of normal brain development, but school officials hope to encourage students to seek new experiences, not new substances — trying out for a part in a play or practicing a new instrument, Cash said.
Click here for Noozhawk’s next story, which talks more extensively with school and community leaders about the issues of underage drinking, marijuana use and party buses.
— Noozhawk news editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.