Prom Season Brings Wave Of Illegal Party Rentals

On a warm weekend last June, residents of a neighborhood on the outskirts of Sag Harbor Village called police to complain about a large number of noisy young people in a nearby house.

When code enforcement officers from Southampton Town arrived at the house, they found 17 people inside, all under the age of 21. The young man who answered the door told officers that the kids had rented the house for the weekend following their senior prom.

A week or so later, the owner of the house was charged with violating eight town health and safety codes at the house, and with failing to possess a town rental permit—although the permit, in fact, would have been suspended if he did have one, because town code does not allow a house to be rented for less than 30 days. The kids at the house were not issued any summonses.

The incident was not unusual. For students from schools in western Suffolk County, Nassau and Westchester counties, New York City, and several counties in northern New Jersey, renting a house in the Hamptons for an “after-party” on the weekend of their proms has become a common practice—one of the increasingly luxurious trappings of the annual prom ritual, such as renting a limo once was and borrowing the family car was before that.

Prom house rentals are sometimes shared by as few as a handful to a dozen kids. But often, two or three dozen may be present—and, occasionally, many more: a house rented by students from a Westchester County school district for this coming June has some 70 names on the guest list, according to an online posting.

The house leases are often arranged by an enterprising student who either conceals the plans for the rental or finds one that is marketed specifically to such parties. A simple online search turns up a half dozen such properties, and brokers say that there are many owners willing to rent to prom groups. Scores more listings are from teens and parents looking for a suitable after-prom rental.

Code enforcement officials say they find most prom houses are commonly rented year after year by students from the same school district, and are not chaperoned by an adult of any kind. Others have private security guards or a parent on the premises, but there are varying efforts to keep behavior in check. The party of 70 kids from Westchester, for example, is reportedly to be chaperoned by teachers from the school.

That parents and even teachers would be present at a weekend after-prom rental may be stunning, considering that while the idea of the “prom house” may have started innocently enough—a group of friends stretching the special night into a weekend retreat at a parents’ house in the Hamptons—the practice has evolved into a decidedly illicit activity. Police and code officers who knock on the doors of the party houses say that alcohol and drugs, sometimes in vast quantities, are almost always present at the underage parties, chaperones or not. The teenagers spend the night, or several nights, in the house together, enjoying the bacchanalia.

In 2005, the head of a well-regarded Catholic school in Nassau County cancelled the school’s prom because he learned that some students had rented a house in the Hamptons for the after-party—he said the school was “willing to sponsor a prom, but not an orgy.”

‘No Deaths (Almost One)’

A page on the popular social networking site Facebook, set up by Queens high school students who rented a house in Southampton in early May for an after-prom, shows no apparent adult presence in the more than 400 photos linked to the page—but plenty of visual evidence that beer and other alcohol was available in large quantities. It had the following assessment of the weekend, written by one of the participants: “Um, basically we had the greatest time ever. We drank heavily, we had no deaths (almost one), no damages, I mean one small non-obvious hole and a s---load of memories.”

In the 1990s, the motels of Montauk became a popular after-prom weekend destination for groups—sometimes busloads—of kids from up-island schools. The celebrations, perhaps not surprisingly, got rowdy. After several hotels were trashed in ways even a rock star would be shocked by—one group tore a hole in the walls between two rooms large enough for people to pass through—East Hampton Town Police cracked down, and hotels largely stopped booking the weekend group rentals. But the prom house trend has continued unabated.

The owners of homes booked for prom parties are occasionally unaware of who is to be using their house, according to Southampton Town’s chief code enforcement officer, David Betts, who said they might be misled by whoever arranges the rental. Others act as de-facto social coordinators.

Many renters will not rent to groups of young people. Several houses listed on various Hamptons rental websites, or sometimes on web pages set up specifically to market rental houses on the East End, expressly say “no prom parties”—even while touting the availability of the house for weekend rentals and a wide variety of other illegal rental arrangements.

But some invite prom inquiries, touting the number of people who can be accommodated and offering private security and transportation. A page on Facebook dubbed the “Ultimate Prom Mansion” in the Hamptons—no specific address is listed—boasts of having 48 beds. Another page touts the availability of up to five separate seven- to 10-bedroom houses available for groups of up to 100, and offers luxury transportation and “official security guards that will ensure that the prom [party] will run smoothly.”

Mr. Betts, whose officers cite a half dozen or more prom parties in a typical season, said that encountering paid security guards is increasingly common. The guards typically do not appear to be there to safeguard the well-being of the kids as much as to protect the property and run interference should police or code enforcement show up. Some landlord/hosts have devised contingency plans for the partying students should authorities be at the door—at least one employing shouted alerts like “code red” and instructions for everyone to scurry to the house’s basement.

“Last year, we went to a house where an individual had rented a house and sublet it to a prom group, so the owner was unaware of what was going on,” Mr. Betts said. “He was very organized. After we got involved, he just moved them to another property.”

The financial temptation to take in the partying teens is substantial. According to rental brokers, a six- or seven-bedroom house will rent for as much as $5,000 to $7,000 for a single weekend in May or June. A Westhampton broker, who asked not to be named, said he has been contacted on more than one occasion by parents seeking to rent a house for their child and a group of friends for a weekend. Finding them a suitable listing is not difficult, he added.

“It’s the same houses that are renting as shares for July and August,” he said. “They’re big houses, lots of bedrooms and big living rooms, on big properties, away from neighbors. They can make more from prom rentals in June than from the Memorial Day to Labor Day crowd.”

‘A Dumb Idea’

With the dangers of prom parties apparent, some school districts are laboring to bring an end to the prom house trend. Some go to great lengths to ensure that parents are aware of the practice and aware of its legal issues. In the Half Hollow Hills School District, near the Suffolk-Nassau border, the parents of any student who wants to attend the prom must participate in a forum with school administrators, police and attorneys to discuss school policies and the criminal penalties that face any adult who facilitates underage drinking, known as “social host laws.” School officials have been in contact with East End police and code enforcement officers, according to Half Hollow Hills district spokesperson Christina Geed.

“We try to set the proper tone so that parents can’t say they didn’t know,” Ms. Geed said. “We still hear it—we know these parties are happening. But we believe that as a school district, we are doing everything possible to deter these parties from happening.”

At Scarsdale High School in Westchester County, Superintendent of Schools John Klemme said the school has a tight policy banning limousines for students, requiring that all prom attendees arrive on buses chartered by the school. But after the prom is over, he acknowledges, what students do is out of the district’s control.

“I’m not surprised that there might be houses rented by parents,” he said when told of a rental in contract with a district parent and dozens of kids expected to attend. “We go out of our way to communicate with parents and encourage them to organize after-prom activities. But our responsibility on prom night ends at 11 p.m. We are not a 24-7 institution.”

Parental supervision of underage drinking is not a new occurrence. Police say that they have been finding drinking parties for decades that were going on with the approval of a parent who was in the house. But the practice seems to be spreading and has reached a new level with the after-prom weekend parties. Some law enforcement agencies are asking lawmakers to significantly stiffen the penalties for adults who look the other way on underage drinking.

“It’s definitely a dumb idea,” said Southampton Town Police Detective Sergeant Randy Hintze. “They say, ‘I’d rather have them supervised than out on the street.’ But, really, they are just turning a blind eye to dangerous behavior.

“We had two instances last year of parents hosting this kind of party,” he continued. “At one, an attendee was assaulted when they passed out from consumption of alcoholic beverages. One parent told their son to get someone in the shower and get them sobered up. It totally boggles my mind that they are encouraging this behavior.”

While police, schools and lawmakers try to find ways to halt the overall trend, code enforcement departments in Southampton and East Hampton are left to interdict the prom house rentals one at a time, as they find out about them. After learning of an after-prom party planned for a house the first weekend of June, Southampton Town code enforcement officers contacted the parent who had arranged the weekend lease. The school district will be next.

“We explained the rental law to them. They were beside themselves—the renter doesn’t advertise that it’s illegal,” Mr. Betts said. “I explained that it’s not possible to have 50 or 60 people staying in a house for a weekend and have it be safe. But coming to the Hamptons is still very popular.”