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Over the past five years, underage drinking offenses in Pennsylvania totaled 30,393. (Courtesy of Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts)<\/p>\nThree counties in southeastern Pennsylvania were among the top 10 highest percentages in the state for underage drinking offenses filed from 2020 to 2024.<\/p>\n
Chester County had about 8% of the total retail underage drinking charges filed during that period, according to data released by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.<\/p>\n
Montgomery County had about 4% of the state total during that time, and Delaware County had about 3%.<\/p>\n
Over the past five years, underage drinking offenses in Pennsylvania totaled 30,393. (Courtesy of Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts)<\/p>\n
Over the past five years, underage drinking offenses statewide totaled 30,393, court officials said.<\/p>\n
In Pennsylvania, an underage drinking offense is committed by anyone under the age of<\/p>\n
21 who is caught possessing, consuming, transporting, purchasing or attempting to purchase any alcoholic beverage. These numbers do not include driving under the influence offenses.<\/p>\n
The top counties in the state:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Centre: 3,286 offenses; 10.81% of state total.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Chester: 2,557; 8.41%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Allegheny; 2,380; 7.83%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Philadelphia:1,277; 4.2%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Montgomery:1,266; 4.17%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Dauphin: 1,090; 3.59%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Cumberland: 1,057; 3.48%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Delaware: 994; 3.27%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Washington: 920; 3.03%.<\/p>\n
\u2022 York: 907; 2.98%.<\/p>\n
Sullivan County had one offense during the five years. Forest County had seven, representing 0.02% of the state total.<\/p>\n
A breakdown for counties in the region by year:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Berks: 153 in 2020; 125 in 2021; 154 in 2022; 138 in 2023; 132 in 2024; 702 total offenses; 2.31%<\/p>\n
\u2022 Chester: 259 in 2020; 489 in 2021; 552 in 2022; 567 in 2023; 654 in 2024; 2,557 total; 8.41%<\/p>\n
\u2022 Delaware: 219 in 2020; 210 in 2021; 199 in 2022; 174 in 2023; 192 in 2024; 994 total; 3.27%<\/p>\n
\u2022 Montgomery: 295 in 2020; 235 in 2021; 244 in 2022; 245 in 2023; 247 in 2024; 1,266 total; 4.17%<\/p>\n
Court officials noted that more than $2 million was collected statewide in fines assessed in underage drinking convictions from 2020 to 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three counties in southeastern Pennsylvania were among the top 10 highest percentages in the state for underage drinking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[349,1557,202,212,182,200,139,28,30,29,1015],"class_list":{"0":"post-115151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-chester-county","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-delaware-county","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-montgomery-county","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","17":"tag-pennsylvania-news","18":"tag-top-stories-mer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}