This $61,000.00 is a much more effective use of taxpayer money than the $37,000.00 that is spent for coffee and doughnuts by the Municipal Alliance. It is a aggressivly negative deterrent, against an aggressive negative behavior. Nice people with good intentions, such as the Municipal Alliance just does not have the power to instill real FEAR in the hearts of these offenders and therefore, unfortunatly, are ineffective, comparably speaking, to law enforcement swinging their hammer. They should have came further south and included Lacey instead of stopping at Toms River!!!

How about changing the laws by increasing the fines and punishment to the cool parents who are feeding their underage children alcohol? I almost bet you things would change with stiffer penalties.

How about the political game that the police lets go who ever they know or grew up with. Go after all the bennies or the individuals they do not know. How about no back bone.

who cares, everywhere else in the world adults have the right to drink at 18. Its the paranoid, over legislating law enforcement offcials who make a big deal (and a lot of $$$$) out of nothing. If you are an adult, able to vote, die in war, be sued and tried by a jury of your peers at 18, you should be able to consume alcohol, PERIOD. Assign the cops to area's where real crime occurs, not liquor stores!!!!!!!

If your a US soldier at 18 with a big gun you cant drink because someone thinks that everyone at 18 drinks and drives. Thats total BS, more drunks are over 18 and do it.
Time to get real in this country, its not age but more about being smart and obeying the traffic rules, I am sick of seeing people on the phone driving or texting yet they still so it regardless. This is what the US has become, a country of me first and you can go to hell. If WWIII happens no one would enlist. its not their war.
What a shame
Soldiers should be able to have a beer if they are at war screw the age limit.

Make the drinking age 19. By then everyone is out of high school so you're not mixing legal drinkers in with the high school population. 19-year olds are either in college, in the service or working for a living. Quit making criminals out the 19 and 20 year-olds for wanting to have a few cold ones the same way the rest of the world does.

I remember when I was much younger, they changed the age to 18 for a while, but that didn't work out, so they changed it back to 21. It doesn't matter what the legal drinking age is, people under that age are still going to drink. Kids are drinking at 13 years old. That isn't going to stop unless people stop supplying them with alcohol.

Let's start with the parent supplying and providing them with alcohol first. The parents need to stop. They wonder why their children are alcohols by the time they graduate H.S.. Why did they not learn a thing? Stop allowing their child to drink at 13. Some parents, just chalk it up to all kids are going to drink, it is harmless and acceptable. Wake up parents, it is against the law.

You guys are missing the point. This isn't about a legal drinking age, or money spent in politics. I work in this industry and feel this is a logical approach to help protect the large investments made by restaurant and store owners in their businesses and raise the awareness of their employees. I don't think many of you would want to lose a million dollar investment because of some punk kid with a fake ID that wraps his car around a telephone pole.

WAKE UP! Realize that kids are going to get alcohol and kids are going to drink. Educate these children about drinking responsibly and parents...GET CLOSER TO YOUR KIDS. This is one of those parenting issues that is tough to deal with. I personally have 6 children. Around the age of 16 you stat giving them more and more freedom and they experiment. Around 17 to 18, they drive....mobility=freedom. I told my kids that if they are going to a party where there is drinking, and they are going to drink, TELL ME! I don't get mad, I simply go pick them up after the party. This way they can be cool and drink; however, they don't get completely plastered because mom or dad is coming to get them. If you decide to drink after you drive to a party, CALL ME, let me know and I will come get you and your car....or pick up the car in the morning. THIS keeps the kids safe. You can punish whoever you want and/or put laws in place, but it isn't going to do ANYTHING. Spend the money on alcohol education for the kids. The article states that "Since its implementation in 1996, nearly 10,000 underage persons and adults have been arrested in the state as a result of the initiative"; however, it does not say if it stopped the people from doing it again. I'm guessing NO.

150 underage drinking and pot smoking teens at a party the other night off Yellowbank and all the Toms River police did was shoo them away and allowed then to get into their cars and drive away DRUNK. Is this a responsible police response. I think NOT! We the homeowners surrounding this party house stood there shocked.

Also what kind of parents go off to Las Vegas and leave 2 teens in charge.

I have heard this before, nothing new. The town Police in a lot of towns choose not to do their job that they were hired to do. Most likely the police new someone with a little clout at this house Party. If you take one in, you have to take them all in. Unless they are brazen enough to bust some and not others. Not saying that did not happen before either. But the kids are smarter today with all the phones and pictures they take. Yet they will use an example out of kids and parents that have no clout and connection. Duh!!! They have to bust someone. That is what you call, Stupid Parents.

Now this funny, Director Halfacre states that Belmar is a key player in the "Cops in Shops program" to help control drinking of underage drinking. (30 towns in participating from Monmouth Beach to Toms River.) Is Point Pleasant Beach in that equation? Most likely not, being he is helping only some towns control related drinking problems and hurting others by not letting every town set their own bar hours. He is not worrying about what the residents and kids have to put up in Point Pleasant Beach with all the related drinking issue. I sure hope they are going to have camera's watching the Police in action that no one is going to be let go.