A. The city council of the city of Petaluma, pursuant to the city’s police powers under Article XI, Sections 3 and 5 of the California Constitution, and the City Charter established pursuant to such sections, has the authority to enact and enforce laws that promote the public health, safety and general welfare of its residents. The occurrence of social gatherings on private property where alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons is harmful to the underage persons involved and a threat to public health and safety, quiet enjoyment of residential property and the general welfare. Underage persons often obtain alcoholic beverages at gatherings held at private residences or at rented residential and commercial premises that are under the control of a person who knows, or should know, of the underage consumption of alcohol.

B. The city council finds that in too many cases, persons having possession or control of private property who are responsible for social gatherings on that property have failed to ensure that alcoholic beverages are neither served to, nor consumed by, underage persons at these gatherings. The city council further finds that problems associated with social gatherings where alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons are difficult to prevent and deter unless the Petaluma police department has the legal authority to direct the host to disperse the gathering and to cite the responsible persons.

C. Law enforcement personnel have in the past been required to respond to unruly gatherings on private property at which alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons. Law enforcement personnel have also received multiple service calls in the same calendar year concerning unruly gatherings at the same property. Such calls for service result in a disproportionate expenditure of public safety resources and delay official responses to other calls in the rest of the city. Additionally, underage drinking at such gatherings has resulted in disproportionately higher numbers of underage persons driving while intoxicated, increased social violence, and incidents of sexual assault.

D. An ordinance that imposes liability on property owners and other responsible persons for gatherings that allow underage drinking is necessary to deter and prevent such gatherings. Persons who actively and passively aid, allow, or tolerate such gatherings should be held liable for permitting such gatherings, the nuisances created by them and the costs associated with responding to them.

E. The purposes of this chapter include: protecting the public health, safety and welfare by deterring the service to and consumption of alcoholic beverages by underage persons, and reducing the costs to the public of providing police response services to unruly gatherings and gatherings of underage persons where alcohol is served, both in terms of monetary costs and availability of law enforcement personnel for other calls. These purposes are implemented by the imposition of criminal penalties for social hosts as well as the imposition of administrative penalties for social hosts and landowners (including landlords) and the imposition of fees to recover the costs incurred by the city in providing law enforcement responses to gatherings where alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons at properties where previous such gatherings have required law enforcement responses.

F. For these reasons, the Petaluma city council declares that gatherings on private property where alcoholic beverages are served to, or consumed by, underage persons are a threat to the public peace, health, safety and general welfare, and a public nuisance as they affect at the same time the entire Petaluma community as well as the neighborhoods in which they occur.