The District Attorney continues to successfully enforce the new ruling that penalizes owners of bars and discotheques that allow minors (persons under 18 years old) on their premises. In the past, groups of teenagers frequented city discotheques. Many parents gave in to the peer pressures felt by their own teenagers, and allowed them to go. Those days are over. Now, the District Attorney office, in coordination with the office for the Defense of Girls, Boys and Teenagers, is carrying out raids on nightspots. The number of minors being let in has declined, and parents now have an excuse to not allow their teenagers to go. The businesses are being obliged to request their clients show their ID. While the situation has improved, the fight for enforcing the legal drinking age of 18 years old and banning minors from adult nightspots continues. The Listin Diario published a report on a Saturday DA raid on Jubilee and Dynasty (Malecon), and Stratus (Piantini) discotheques over the weekend. The DA entered these establishments, ordered the music to be turned off and everyone to show their ID to the judicial agents. Following the raid on Saturday evening, Reyes said that she would recommend that a judge issue a closing order for both Jubilee and Stratus for not heeding recommendations made in an earlier raid and allowing massive admission of adolescents. No minors were found in Dynasty. Rosanna Reyes, assistant to the District Attorney, leads the campaign. She said that the presence of a single minor in one of the nightspots, is reason enough to close down the establishment. She said that the DA office had been lenient in applying the law, but would do so in the cases of businesses found to be guilty of violating the law a second time around. She said that the DR has lived in the illegality with regards to the rights of minors for a long time, making it is necessary to implement strict methods to get the point across. She urged that owners of the centers and parents become aware of the consequences of adolescents visiting nightspots, such as drunk driving, being an object of sexual abuse, drunk consumption or being used for drug trafficking.
