PROVIDENCE — Adults who allow underage drinking parties anywhere on their property can now be arrested, under the law signed last week by Governor Carcieri. But if a party host is under 21 — a college student leasing off-campus housing, say, or teenagers left to their own devices at home — the law doesn’t apply in the same way.

Instead of a criminal misdemeanor, the under 21-hosts still face only a civil violation for underage possession of alcohol. While the bills’ sponsors in the House and Senate succeeded in closing a loophole in the two-year-old law to make adults criminally liable for underage drinking anywhere on their property — indoors or out — they couldn’t make it stick for the under-21 hosts.

The legislation was intended to crack down on parents who allow house parties with underage drinking. The police had also hoped it would have given them a tool to discourage house parties hosted by college students or by teenagers whose parents aren’t home.

“Our original language on the social-host legislation would have given the local cities and towns the authority to prosecute underage kids for hosting underage house parties,” said Michael J. Healey, spokesman for the attorney general’s office. “But it didn’t survive the ‘sausage-making process.’ ”

The General Assembly had taken another look at the two-year-old law this year, after Barrington police inadvertently discovered a loophole. Officers breaking up a keg party with numerous youths last year found they couldn’t charge the owner of the house as a “social host” because the law at the time specified underage drinking “in his or her residence.”

The sponsors, Rep. Jan Malik and Sen. Walter Felag, both Warren Democrats, came back with bills to fix the loophole. They also included provisions to beef up the penalties against underage drinkers and make it a crime for people to manufacture or distribute fake driver’s licenses. But the sponsors met resistance when they tried to charge under-21-year-olds with a crime for hosting a party.

Malik said he had to find a compromise to get the legislation through. So, he found another way to hit the underage drinkers where it hurts –– by suspending their driver’s licenses.

Anyone under 21 who tries to buy alcohol or to have someone else buy it for him or her, or who lies about his or her age to get alcohol will face mandatory community service, fines and a 30-day license suspension. A second offense calls for a three-month suspension, and a third a year’s suspension. Anyone under 21 caught with alcohol will still lose his or her license for at least 60 days, but the fines are increased for subsequent offenses and community service is mandatory.

Will these changes make a difference? “That’s what we’re going to find out,” Malik said Thursday, the day after the governor signed the bill into law. “Let’s see what happens down the road.”

While praising the legislators for passing the new law, South Kingstown police Lt. Paul Horoho was still baffled about the remaining loophole that gives young party hosts an out.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Horoho. “If it’s dangerous to give alcohol to a minor, it doesn’t matter who gave it to him. It’s still dangerous.”

In Narragansett, where University of Rhode Island students live in houses and apartments throughout the community, police Capt. Gerald Driscoll wondered whether society would accept arresting a 19- or 20-year-old for hosting a drinking party.

The Narragansett police have developed other ways to combat the party houses, he said, such as ordinances that allow only one keg and require the keg buyers to file information at Town Hall about when and where the keg party will be. That tended to cut back on the old “Keg-Olympic” days of 40 kegs for parties, Driscoll said.

During the academic year, the town also posts orange stickers on houses deemed to be a public nuisance because of raucous house parties and imposes fines of up to $500 and community service for repeat offenses.

“Eight out of 10 times, the sticker is enough to calm things down,” Driscoll said.

The town is being sued by the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the URI Student Senate on allegations that the ordinance violates the due-process rights of the students and landlords, and that the orange sticker humiliates and shames them.

On campus, the police have the option of using the campus student conduct system to enact discipline; a “three-strikes” policy allows suspension from the university for two semesters, said Tom Dougan, the vice president for student affairs. The university has an average of 600 cases a year of underage possession of alcohol, he said.

“Alcohol is a major problem on college campuses. We take it seriously and enforce the heck out of it,” Dougan said.

The Newport police collaborate with Salve Regina University to combat underage drinking, and when the social host law was approved two years ago it made an impression on students, said community police officer Kevin Parsonage.

As for the new legislation, “I think it will help in the warmer days, with parties in backyards,” said Parsonage. “Every little bit of support we get from the laws will save lives.”

Horoho, in South Kingstown, concurs. “The package as a whole is excellent,” he said. “It really helps our cause against underage drinking.”

Horoho still hopes for another attempt in the General Assembly next year to charge those over 18 as social hosts.

“People look at underage drinking as a rite of passage,” Horoho said. “Well, we used to use asbestos in buildings. We used to ride in cars without seat belts. We learned. We don’t do that anymore. As a society, we need to learn that underage drinking is not a rite of passage.”

amilkovi@projo.com