It's Halloween weekend in Santa Barbara (UCSB) and my roommates and I are getting dressed and ready to go out. One of the roommate's cousins and friends are in town so they are in the living room drinking and getting ready for the night. Then someone comes to our room and says, "Cops are here, they want to speak to someone who lives here." Being the oldest one (the only one in the house who is 21 (my other roommates are either 20 or about to turn 20)) and the first to hear the situation, I walk out and there are two Isla Vista cops waiting outside the door to speak. As I walk, there are two kids outside that are sitting that are being written up with a ticket. The officer then proceeds to tell me that the kids (under 21 of course) were drinking and had said they had gotten alcohol from our house. These are my roommate's cousin's friends and I did not buy them alcohol; they had brought it in themselves and I had no idea what was going on until the cops told me. There, the cop cited me with a contributing to minors ticket who threated to write a ticket that could've been $3000 max and a trip to jail. Instead, he gave the ticket at $2500 and told me there was nothing I could do. He also said that anyone who came to answer the door first would've been cited and since I was the first and 21, I got the distributing to minors ticket. I was extremely cooperative and I have an absolute clean record. I also did not have a single drip of alcohol in my system at that point.
My questions are:
- Could I have just closed the door (since there was no warrant although the door was open)?
- What steps can be taken at this point with the ticket and court date set?
- What are the worst case scenarios that can take place?
- How can this affect me in regards to my record, school and job?

