Tweeter Center Troubles

It's Friday night and the action is hot on the Tweeter Center stage. But that was nothing compared to the show going on in the parking lot hours before the concert started.

"Today's my birthday, it really is, I'm 19," said one girl who spoke with NBC 10 while she was drinking a can of beer.

Her age didn't stop her from doing a beer funnel with her friends, and this was at 4 p.m. in the afternoon.

The NBC 10 Investigators sent a team of undercover researchers to the parking lot before the concert.

They found kids who said they were as young as 15 partying right out in the open across the street from the Tweeter Center.

And that's not all. Twice, the undercover team was asked if it wanted to buy drugs.

Even when the NBC 10 cameras were in full view, the partying never stopped.

"I'm 19 years of age, and I've been (expletive deleted) drinking beer all day," said another team to our camera crew.

He also told NBC 10 that the parking lot was full of drugs.

"You can get (mu)shrooms, you can get acid, you can get anything you want man, anything," he said. "I was offered (mu)shrooms for 40 bucks, but I was like 'no man, I don't do drugs no more.'"

A van has a keg in it and the suds were flowing right in front of our cameras.

There were signs right on the fence prohibiting drinking, but NBC 10 watched over and over again as police and security personnel walked right by partiers.

"There's just too many people, we aren't worried," said one teen. "What are they going to do, send in a swat team to get us all?"

And he may be right The Camden police told us they had only 8 police officers to patrol six different parking lots. But they said they take underage drinking and drugs seriously.

"When we catch underage drinkers, we process them, issue a summons and contact their parents to pick them up," said Lt. Harry Leon Sr.

Later, the Camden police admitted they only issued two underage drinking summonses before the show.

The Tweeter Center wouldn't comment on camera, but it said it cared about safety in the parking lots. But the responsibility lies with lot owners and the police department.

While many of the teens seen on camera told us they were underage drinkers, we do need to point out that not everyone was drinking illegally.

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Author: Copyright 2002 by NBC 10. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.