Ridgewood to have random sobriety checks at dance
JUNE 17, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Police will randomly administer sobriety tests to teens attending Friday’s Backwoods Dance, an annual party that is expected to draw around 1,100 students.
Last year, the dance — organized for Ridgewood High School students in Van Neste Park to both “teach and entertain” — turned away 10 attendees who tried to smuggle in alcohol, said David Zrike, co-founder of the event.
This year, 11 police officers will carry Breathalyzers with them.
“We allow the police to be in charge, and they feel it would be a good deterrent” to pre-dance drinking by some students, Zrike said.
A letter will be going home this week to parents of high school students about the dance and the use of Breathalyzers.
After seeing teenagers being arrested outside a party five years ago in Ridgewood, Zrike contacted the high school’s former principal, Jack Lorenz, to organize safe events to keep the village’s young people out of trouble.
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