STUPIDEST Ticket you ever got./For ANYTHING

On April 09 2010 06:28 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:
I had a TERRIBLE experience being ticketed my sophomore year as an undergrad.

For those who don't know, Halloween weekend at UCSB is pure insanity. I've never seen so much partying in such a condensed place anywhere. Anyway, I lived with 8 other guys in a large house and one of my house mates allowed his younger, female cousin and her three friends to stay with us for the weekend. Some were 18, some were almost 18, and all were seniors in high school. Us guys were all either 19 or 20 at the time.

It all started when I got off of work around ~9pm ready to get dressed up, start drinking, and head to Del Playa Street (where everybody walks around in costume). So I get home, and tons of people are over and everybody is already plastered out of their minds, including these girls. I walk in the house, say my "hellos" and sit down on the couch for a second to watch Sportscenter. Meanwhile, two of the girls walk outside, one of which is 17, with beers in their hands. I've been home all of three minutes when I see the police roll up and sit these girls down on the curb. Everybody in the house freaks out and is wondering what the hell is going to happen as we see them talking/crying to the police. About five minutes later the police officer comes to the door.

Here's where it went sour. Nobody else in the house was sober and would have been able to talk to the officer reasonably. Being the responsible one and expecting the officer to simply tell me to make sure these drunk girls stay inside, I answered the door. BIG MISTAKE.

As soon as I open the door, he says: "get the other girls out here right now or you're going to jail." The girls hear this from the back room and jump out the window and over the back yard fence because they were drunken idiots. I come back and tell him that I can't find them because they fucking jumped over a fence. So he calls for backup and like 4 police cars roll up and they chase these girls down. They all get sat down in front of the house on the curb and I have to explain to the police officer why these girls were walking around outside drunk and that I had no idea because I had JUST gotten home from work.

Anyway, he hands me a ticket for "furnishing alcohol to a minor," which as I've since learned, was a punishment initially created to punish liquor stores and bars which sell booze to underage kids. It's a considered a serious misdemeanor and comes with a $3000+ fine AND a mandatory court appearance... I asked how it made any fucking sense to give that to me and he said "you assumed responsibility over anything illegal by answering the door."

So I go to court where I'm represented by a public defender because I don't have jack shit for money as a college student. Initially the judge keeps the punishment as is. After the public defender talks to the DA, I get off with an infraction instead of a misdemeanor, a $500 fine, and I have to attend 5 AA meetings and I'm enrolled in the "Youth Offender" program.

The worst part, the girls refused to help out and their parents blamed me even though I had neither bought nor given them any alcohol. It was such fucking bullshit. My buddy pitched in for the fine, but going to AA meetings is a terrible way to spend your Friday nights...