(a) Underage persons consuming alcoholic beverages, cannabis, or cannabis products at gatherings held at private residences or at rented residential and commercial premises is harmful to the underage persons themselves and a threat to the peace, health, safety, quiet enjoyment of residential property and the general welfare of the public. Underage persons, who have been consuming alcoholic beverages or cannabis, are at greater risk to be in automobile accidents, to commit suicide, to be assaulted, and are at greater risk of sexual assaults.
(b) Persons responsible for the occurrence of these types of gatherings on private property, over which they have possession or control, have failed to ensure that alcoholic beverages, cannabis, or cannabis products are neither served to nor consumed by underage persons at these parties.
(c) Problems associated with gatherings involving underage persons drinking alcohol, consuming cannabis, or cannabis products are difficult to prevent and deter. Police need an arsenal of tools to deal with these issues and its attendant problems. If persons are held civilly responsible by having to pay a significant fine for hosting a party where there is underage drinking or cannabis consumption, they will be more likely to properly supervise or stop such conduct at events held on property under their possession or control. Because the median household income for the City of Thousand Oaks is higher than other communities the fine needs to be significant to have such a deterrent effect.
(d) In the past and present, law enforcement, fire and other emergency response services personnel have and are required to respond, sometimes on multiple occasions, to these types of gatherings. The repeated return of police officers to the location of an event constitutes a drain of emergency personnel and resources, often leaving other areas of the city without police protection or with unreasonably limited protection. Responses to such gatherings also result in a disproportionate expenditure of public safety resources of the City of Thousand Oaks, which are underwritten by general municipal taxes paid to the City by its taxpayers and residents.
(e) Research has documented that cannabis use during adolescence and early adulthood results in impaired neural connectivity in several areas of the brain associated with learning and memory. This impairment may affect numerous developmental problems among adolescents, including lower IQ scores, poorer school performance, higher school dropout rates, and impaired verbal cognitive and attention performance.
The adverse effects associated with adolescent and early adulthood use of cannabis increase in severity with early onset and heavy use.
(§ 2, Ord. 1462-NS, eff. June 9, 2006, as amended by § 1, Ord. 1590-NS, eff. December 6, 2013; § 6, Ord. 1636-NS, eff. December 29, 2017)