High school senior Brett Thomas knew he’d be getting hammered after his graduation. What he didn’t know was his mom would be buying the kegs.

“I would rather have them drink at my house, with their keys in my possession, than go out into the desert where they drink and all hell breaks loose,” says Brett’s mother, Sherri Thomas, who has purchased more than one keg for underage drinking parties in her home.

Thomas is one of numerous parents across the Valley and the nation who reason that if their child is going to be drunk anyway, they might as well be drunk at home and not out on the roads. Many Valley students and parents in the know say parentally sanctioned drinking parties are part of a rising trend.

On the other side of the issue, and sometimes literally on the other side of the street, are law-abiding parents who feel increasingly singled out as “sticks in the mud” party poopers when they expect their kids not to drink, or at least expect chaperoning parents to uphold the law.

From parent-paid hotel rooms to party limousines and unchecked all-nighters, more Valley parents are knowingly looking the other way while their “kids are being kids.” Boys, it seems, will wrestle. Girls will gossip, and high schoolers will get drunk and have sex.

According to a recent Columbia University study, 50 percent of 17-year-olds have attended drinking parties where a parent was home. Locally, Valley teens ranging from honor students to dropouts interviewed for this story confirm the report’s statistical findings.

Two Wrongs Make a…

When Horizon High School quarterback Dax Crum saw blue police lights flashing through the debris of a living room, he still wasn’t sure what had happened. Crum was sitting in the leather-appointed interior of his dad’s $90,000 Mercedes. The car, a luxury AMG model with a supped up engine, is faster than some Porsches, so the stucco wall of 87-year-old John Roberts’ house barely slowed the car as it tore through his dining room.

Four months later, skid marks are still visible where the sedan shot over the curb, mowing down the mailbox, clearing the circular driveway and finally landing inside the home, the front bumper kissing a recliner.

It was Prom 2006, and Crum had been 18 for just three months. Statistically, he’s one of the lucky ones. According to AAA, about 4,700 teens ages 15 to 20 die in alcohol-related crashes every year. Parents who sponsor underage drinking parties say stories like Crum’s are all the motivation they need to continue providing alcohol at home for their kids, even if it does technically break the law.

And it seems more parents are toeing that line. “The findings of this national report should send a clear message to parents that they need to wake up and smell the pot and beer and do a much better job of chaperoning their teen’s party,” says Lauren Duran, director of communications for the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

“The disconnect between parents and teens is enormous,” Duran adds. “Parents seem to have no idea how awash their teen’s world is in alcohol, prescription and illegal drugs.”

Some parents do seem to have a clue. Coalitions from Ahwatukee to Desert Mountain are banding together in grass roots efforts to monitor their kids’ parties. All the while, several Valley police departments, including Scottsdale’s, claim to their knowledge, such parties don’t happen in their municipalities.

Moms ‘N’ Kegs

Mother Janet Adams, who asked that the name of her two sons’ high school not be used, acknowledges her booze-provided parties help her sons skirt the consequences of their drinking. Adams says she sometimes wakes to a house full of passed-out minors blanketing the floor of her home.

“I know the kids, and I’m glad they’re here and not somewhere else,” says Adams, who isn’t opposed to buying a few kegs. Though, she points out, most kids show up with more alcohol in hand than she could ever hope to provide.

“I know other parents would prefer that they drink at my house, instead of going into the desert,” Adams says, confessing that not all parents know their kids are drinking at the “chaperoned” parties.

Adams also knows she’s breaking the law. “Parents are caught between a rock and a hard place. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” she says. “Do I like it? No, but do I have any other choice?”

The mother of two prides herself on keeping her eagle eyes trained on exactly what comes in and out of her parties. “Keys are taken,” she says matter of factly. “Drugs are not allowed.”

Adams hopes to protect her sons for as long as possible. “You may say ‘no’ to one party, but they’re going to go out to another one. You can’t keep these kids in a bubble,” Adams says. “You can only hope they learn.”

Party Poopers

As benevolent and progressive as Adams’ parties may sound, law-abiding parents say pro-booze parents make their job increasingly difficult.

Bill and Cindy Hawkins, like many other parents at their son’s Catholic prep school, live in an million dollar home and go to church every Sunday. So the Hawkins were surprised when they were the only two of 30 parents who opposed the idea of buying the 17- and 18-year-olds alcohol for their lockdown post-prom party this past spring.

When the party limo pulled up, Mrs. Hawkins asked the driver to see the list of scheduled stops. “Don’t make a big deal about this,” another parent interrupted.

“It’s the kids’ prom night,” another parent interjected. “They’ve got it all planned. They’re gonna be fine in the limo. Don’t be a stick in the mud.” Hawkins was soon pressed into an awkward upper-middle-class peer pressure showdown not unlike those exerted in most junior high school cafeterias.

“How do you even talk with your kid about not drinking when all their friends and all their friends’ parents are encouraging it?” Hawkins asks.

“For Prom 2006, my husband and I were concerned that the planning for alcohol consumption was such a huge assumption that all the other parents and kids seemed to take for granted,” Hawkins says.

She adds that many baby boomer parents seem more enthralled with the idea of being their kids’ friends than with the responsibility of guiding their lives in a safe direction.

For Hawkins, Prom 2006 was a final straw, of sorts. She says other parents have lied to her about whether alcohol is at house parties or not. But Hawkins doesn’t know where to turn as she raises her daughter in the same social circles.

“Parents say, ‘since you’re doing it anyway, let’s have it at home,’ or ‘let’s be safe about it,’ rather than, ‘this is illegal, this is bad for your body, bad for your mind, and the younger you start the more likely you are to become addicted,’” she says.

Professional Party Patrol

Wearing a black Jack Daniels t-shirt and driving an unmarked 2004 Suburban, Phoenix Police Youth Alcohol Detective Tom Tardy says parental peer pressure to condone drinking is on the rise in all corners of the Valley.

“From North Scottsdale to southwest Phoenix, we’ve got the same trend: more and more kids drinking, and more and more parents going along with it,” says the six-foot-six Tardy, who spends his weekends crashing teen parties. “Parents are teaching their kids they can pick which laws to obey and which ones to break.”

Tardy has been working with Phoenix PD’s Youth Alcohol Squad for four years. Steering the Suburban to a reported bash, Tardy says there is a direct correlation between affluence and parent-provided booze parties. He spends most weekend nights in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, administering breathalyzer tests to upper-middle-class kids.

“It’s proven that the younger you drink the more likely you are to become an alcoholic,” Tardy says. He has seen parental involvement on every level of underage drinking, from providing the alcohol to renting hotel rooms.

Tardy recalls storming a hotel room of lingerie-clad high school girls, surrounded by beer-guzzling football players. One of the girls’ moms had rented the room. Other nights Tardy busts “party crews” who break into warehouses or unfinished apartments, advertise a party and charge students a cover. Tardy suggests ignorant parents use the search function on Myspace.com to get a clue.

It’s about 11 p.m. and Tardy is pulling into a nearly-finished condo complex. He gases the Suburban up a hill, and the headlights expose about 50 teens, most wearing Sunnyslope High School’s green and black colors. Football players and student fans swarm in and out of the unoccupied condos, some with beer in hand.

Tardy gently drives the unmarked Suburban away, seemingly unnoticed, and radios for two marked police cars to assist. Minutes later the patrol cars and Suburban roar into the complex, lights spraying flashes of blue on the stucco walls. Like a swarm of bees, the students scatter.

Tardy knows while he’s breaking up the party in this neighborhood, parents are sponsoring similar underage drinking in other neighborhoods.

Friend, Parent, Provider, All of the Above

“I think the average parent is aware of alcohol’s presence but not the amount of its consumption,” says Abbie Steign, a 2006 Desert Mountain High School graduate. She’s on her way out the door for her first sorority party at the University of Arizona. Steign, 18, has been drunk at parent-sponsored parties from numerous Valley high schools, for occasions such as birthday parties, graduation, New Years and prom.

Across the U.S., prosecutors and local law enforcement agencies are cracking down on parent-sponsored parties. In most cases, parents say they hoped to keep drunk teens off the roads, and in most cases the parents of the teens attending the parties had no idea what was going on there.

At her own prom in 2005, Steign’s parents offered their pool house as a “don’t ask, don’t tell,” safe house for a post-prom party. When Steign’s father, a prominent physician, walked into the puke-stenched pool house, he promptly gave the drunk minors their keys and shooed them on their way.

Steign had told other parents there wouldn’t be drinking at the party, but as his 18-year-old daughter put it, “Some parents do the, ‘if it’s there I’m not going to see it. I’m not going to look, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.’”

With little research, consenting or even providing parents can be found at almost any high school in the Valley. Tardy says parents of upper-middle-class students can safely assume at least one family in their school allows underage drinking.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says it could only be a matter of time before Valley parents do make the evening news for allowing the illegal activity. “I believe a lot of parents today think they are making a good decision by allowing their home to be a safe haven for underage drinking,” Arpaio told The Times.

“Parents need to be parents to their children, not friends,” Arpaio says. “If parents don’t say ‘no,’ all kinds of problems can result, ranging from criminal prosecution to potentially huge liability costs against the adults who allowed underage drinking to occur in their homes.”

Seventeen-year-old Samantha Peterson, a senior at Sunnyslope High School, agrees. Peterson says it’s not uncommon for parents to be home for smaller “kickbacks,” or parties of less than about 20.

She says parents are often in their bedroom watching TV or even occasionally walking through as she and high school classmates drink together.

Peterson, aware that some girls she knows have been raped at parties, doesn’t mind the security of a mom or dad in the house, but overall she thinks parental involvement is a terrible idea.

She says teenagers will always be doing something their parents aren’t aware of. “If they know about the alcohol, then what don’t they know about?” she asked.

*The names of some sources have been changed for this story.