Good news, teenagers of Contra Costa County. You are no longer the ones responsible for all your off-the-wall parties.

It seems as if this responsibility has been passed on to someone who deserves the punishment more than you do.

So who is to blame for the lamp on the head and beer scented ping-pong balls?

Parents are, according to a new ordinance in Contra Costa County.

According to this new ordinance, parents will now be held responsible for any parties that are thrown at their house. The new ordinance now defines a party as a gathering of three or more people.

So, say you have to get together for a group project with four people at someone’s house. Well, sound the alarm, because we’ve got a real party going now!

The county supervisors who support this ordinance defended themselves by saying they “understand events like this have been going on for years and even are glamorized on the movie screen, but that doesn't make it right.”

If county officials are going to hold someone accountable for another person’s actions, they need to come up with a better excuse then “it’s not right.”

Let’s get real here – are we really going to punish the parents for kids getting together at their house and drinking alcohol? What about the kids who aren’t throwing the party, but are there drinking as well? Shouldn’t those parents be held responsible as well, since they should have a better knowledge of where their child is?

It is impossible for parents to know everything their teenager is doing at any given moment, and for the parents to be held accountable for the bad decisions of their children is preposterous.

Teenagers will be teenagers, and they will act out and break the rules no matter how hard the law tries to crack down on them. And there’s no law that will change that.