POLICE DEPARTMENT BARS DARE FROM FUND-RAISING DOOR-TO-DOOR

BRAINTREE, Mass. The Braintree Police Department has told the DARE national anti-drug program that its door-to-door fund-raisers are not welcome in town.

The move came after a solicitor representing the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program came to the door of select board Chairman James Casey earlier this week. The solicitor was selling coupon books and claimed to work closely with the town's DARE officer.

But when pressed, the solicitor didn't know the name of the town's DARE officer and couldn't describe what he looked like.

Casey described the exchange to Deputy Chief Jay Sullivan, who revoked the organization's police-issued certification required for door-to-door fund-raising in the town about 10 miles south of Boston.

Sullivan said Braintree receives money for its DARE program from the Norfolk County Sheriff's Office and from donations directly to the police department.

"All they're doing is draining funds from the local communities," Sullivan told The Patriot Ledger of Quincy.

Glenn Levant, president and founding director of the nonprofit DARE America, said Braintree's decision was "biting the hand that feeds you."

"I frankly am incredulous that this Deputy Chief Sullivan is so hostile and so inaccurate about our program," Levant said.

The funds raised in town from the sale of the coupon books would have gone to the Braintree Police Department, Levant said.

Sullivan disagreed. "We probably will not ever see any of this money they collect in Braintree and we have no control," he said.

The fund-raising program, called Play & Save, is underway in Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Minnesota.