One ticket to drink, one ride to jail

­ Like something out of an old science lab, the license machine rolls dozens of small plastic cards through its hard metal gears. On the other side, 100 young, laminated faces come flying out, smiling eagerly for their next drink.
“With today¹s technology, it has become increasingly easy for students to get a hold of and make fake identifications,” sophomore Evan White said.
According to the GCSU Department of Public Safety, more and more underage drinkers are using fake ID’s to get into the bars of downtown Milledgeville and purchase alcohol for themselves and friends. Many of these students go to great lengths to insure that they are getting the very best quality fake ID’s. They sometimes spend as much as $300 for a single counterfeit card.
“There was an old acquaintance of mine who owned a printing machine; the same kind that the (Department of Motor Vehicles) would have,” White said. “It could laminate any kind of plastic card and make an identical replica of the real thing. No one could tell the difference.”
Sophomore Christopher Neldon paid the price for trying to use his fake ID in downtown Milledgeville.
“I got caught almost right off the bat,” he said. “I had only had the thing for about a week, and then, just like that, my $60 went straight down the drain. I’m just happy I didn¹t get arrested.”
Many students do not get off so easy. According to the GCSU Public Safety Crime Summary from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2006, there were 290 occurrences of alcoholic possessions under the age of 21. That is nearly half of the total alcohol-related occurrences documented that year. Out of those 290 incidents, 149 ended in arrest.
Cindy Potts, the administrative assistant of the GCSU Department of Public Safety, attributed this high number to the growing popularity of fake ID’s.
“For a lot of (underage drinkers), it’s not that there’s so many underage servers ­ it’s that there’s so many false ID’s,” Potts said.
With so many students getting around their legal age, officers are nowhere near giving up. In fact, this year, they have increased their efforts.
In January alone, there were 20 documented incidents of underage possession, 11 of which ended in arrest.
According to Potts, the current drinking habits of college students on campus have actually improved over those of past graduates.
“We have a whole different crew and a whole different agency of officers now,” Potts said. “The college is saying zero tolerance, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
For underage drinkers in Milledgeville, what was once considered an easy ticket to drink may now be the very opposite; a very hard ride to jail.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 2 2007. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry