If you had a part of your adolescence in or around the city in the past fifteen years you probably spent a night or two (or five) at Sahara East, the East Village joint where the hookahs were cheap and underage drinking was frequently ignored by the surly staff. But, it seems, those days are over. EV Grieve notes that the hookah lounge has been seized by the taxman. Now where will 16-year-old kids go to feel adult while coughing up flavored smoke, sneaking joints in the back and sipping Heinekens? more ›

White and Native American adolescents are playing around with way more drugs and alcohol than their black and Asian counterparts, a new study finds, upending traditional beliefs about which teens are actually the most at-risk. more ›

A party boat carrying a bunch of teenagers had to make an emergency stop at Randall's Island last night, not because they group had run out of Boone's Farm, but because three "intoxicated teens" needed medical attention. DNAinfo reports that the FDNY received an emergency call from the boat around 7 p.m. No word on whether the teens eventually made it to their original destination, Pleasure Island. more ›

The State Liquor Authority sent six men and women, ages 18 to 20, to over 200 New York City bodegas to attempt to buy booze—and, sure enough, at 123 locations, the underaged succeed. The Daily News has details on the three-day sting, "Of the bodegas visited by the SLA, the Bronx had the highest citation rate. Thirty-eight of the 48 stores - about 79% - sold alcohol to underage spies in the borough. Manhattan wasn't far behind with 75% of the bodegas selling to customers under the age of 21." more ›

Kids these days—can you believe the amount of booze they're tossing back? It's like having a fake ID is a right of passage for New York teens! But there might be some hope yet for the littlest lushes. more ›

Months after serving a driver who later hit a teenage girl, a City Island bar is in the hot seat. According to city lawyers, who called it a public nuisance that shouldn't be allowed to do business, the Library Bar & Grill doesn't card young-looking customers. more ›

The war on underage drinking on the Lower East Side has taken an interesting turn. With bars being shut down for serving minors left and right (and some of them going to court over it) you never can be too careful. And so The Magician, once "Blogger High's Peach Pit," has taken its vigilance to an interesting extreme. more ›

Now where will we go for our $2 PBRs? The NYPD shuttered longtime Lower East Side mainstay Welcome to the Johnson's last night. The dive bar was cited for illegally serving alcohol to minors. More and more, it seems that if you throw a dart at a map of LES bars, it's bound to have been shuttered at some point for that reason. more ›

With Four Loko's danger past us, the NYPD is back to worrying about Nutcrackers. Last year the 34th Precinct in upper Manhattan declared war on the guys who peddle Nutcracker—a sweet homemade cocktail illegally sold to legal and underage drinkers—and this year they are planning on redoubling their efforts. "We want to get this off the street, especially when they are selling this garbage to little kids," Captain Jose Navarro of the 34th Precinct told DNAinfo. more ›

Last night, The Low-Down reported that the NYPD closed venerated Lower East Side bar Max Fish for "alleged underage drinking and operating after hours." While the police have pledged to work with bar owners to avoid shutdowns like these, Max Fish's closing comes after LES bars Mason Dixon, Los Feliz, and Gallery Bar all felt the icy hand of the law after allegedly serving minors. Usually after paying a large fine and hiring private security, the offending bars are allowed to reopen, and the Low-Down notes that Max Fish will probably "be closed for about a week." more ›

We'd say this is surprising, but we wouldn't want to lie. LES bars Los Feliz and Mason Dixon, the latter known for its mechanical bull, were shut down by a court order last night, which accused the establishments of serving alcohol to minors. Mason Dixon is also accused of serving alcohol "after hours." One LES partier wrote on Twitter last night, "Mason Dixon on Essex street is being raided by the cops. I feel like I'm in college." more ›

Early yesterday, the 17-year-old daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand fell over 20 stories to her death in Midtown, after a night of partying. While it's unclear whether she was drinking (an autopsy is being performed), Nicole John apparently had a fake ID; on her Tumblr blog (now removed), she gave advice, "As long as the ID is pretty legit looking it should be okay. It’s also easier if you’re a girl, lol. I have a brazilian ID that was made here in NYC and it’s really good, it’s never been rejected." more ›

It's hovering around 82 degrees and sunny today, and who among us is not fantasizing about spending an idyllic summer evening—hell, morning—with a nice bottle of something containing alcohol? It's an impulse as old as time, and you know those meddling kids are feeling it too. The sun-lager correlation affects young and old alike, which is why state Sen. Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) wants to make sure bar owners aren't getting duped into serving underage customers. more ›

Phillies fans just keep on giving! When they're not inducing vomiting on teenage girls or getting Tasered while running on the field, they're buying beers for their kids at the ballgame. During Sunday's Phillies-Padres game at Citizens Bank Park, this cute toddler was caught on video taking a couple of swigs from a Miller Light bottle. Hey, it's not like he had to drive home! To be fair, it's unclear if the bottle was empty or full, nor is it entirely accurate to describe Miller Light as "beer." more ›

We interrupt your Sunday afternoon to bring you this very important news from the Post: their 20-year-old intern was able to buy beer at delis and bars around the city! That's right, folks, despite an ID that clearly states he is "UNDER 21 UNTIL" his birth date, the intern got served at 17 out of 30 establishments he visited. Slow news day, huh? more ›

We've all spent countless hours sitting around a bar passionately vowing to boycott various injustices (right?), but does anyone ever actually follow through? Ask the inspiring patrons of Nevada Smith's, the rabidly popular East Village soccer bar, who have vowed to boycott the bar until two of their most beloved enablers bartenders get their jobs back. EV Grieve reports that the troubles began last week when the bar was shut down for a day due to alleged underage drinking. more ›

Remember "nutcracker" — the bootleg concoction of booze and fruit juice sold in barbershops and bodegas uptown? Did you know you can make $20,000 a year selling it? A man who has mixed and distributed the sugary street cocktail for the past six years sat down with the Manhattan Times and described the trade. more ›

You got to hand it to kids — they always find interesting ways to get bent. New York City teens are apparently buying a sugary concoction of fruit punch mixed with vodka, white rum, or tequila called "Nutcracker." The sweet drinks and their frozen counterpart, "Nemo," are sold for $5 or $10 per Styrofoam cup at bodegas and barbershops, and according to the Daily News, they are quite popular among young folks. "They are poppin'. They get you sauced," said Shaquel, a 15-year-old who declined to give his last name. "Kids like them. You don't need ID to get them. It is like your first step toward drinking liquor." more ›

A man who was beaten by an underage drunk in front of a Wall Street-area bar is suing the pubs that served the young boozer and police who purportedly witnessed the brawl and didn't break it up. more ›

A 22-year-old Long Island gymnastic coach was charged with unlawfully dealing with a child and endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly giving a 14-year-old student a bottle of Malibu Rum. Steven Lamensdorf apparently gave the teen the rum as a "reward" for executing a difficult move. The teen drank so much of the rum that she had to go to the ER WCBS 2's Lou Young (who explains,"The coconut-flavored booze is popular among underage drinkers because it's sweet") got a statement from Lamensdorf's boss at Spins Gymnastics Academy: "He has said he got pressured into it by being repeatedly asked and thought if I do it this once it will be over and done with. He had a momentary, absolutely bizarre lapse in judgment." Still, a parent said, "He should've known better, he's the adult." more ›

Who said preteens don't know how to party? Oh that's right—nobody. Well, a few Connecticut middle schoolers really stepped up to the plate and turned their school bus into a booze cruise on wheels, selling mixed drinks to the other students on board for two dollars each. The Norwalk tween trio used juice, iced tea and Gatorade as mixers, but there was no confirmation of our suspicion that Miley Cyrus thermoses were turned into shakers. School officials are playing party patrol and disciplining the students without police intervention after being tipped off by parents. They claim that none of the students on board the party bus became intoxicated. Which makes us wonder: have these kids already built up a preteen tolerance or were these drinks watered down, thus officially making the junior bartenders the greatest young entrepreneurs since the Olsen twins? more ›

You know a story is going to be good (as in crazy) when it starts "It's a story as old as the drinking laws: A teenage girl convinces a man to buy her a bottle of alcohol." And that's how an article in the Staten Island Advance starts - and it keeps getting better. The leader of a S.I. civic association! Her 21-year-old son! A drunk 14-year-old - and the girl's angry mother! Frank Ammirato,... more ›