Public inebriation is not limited to Tacoma. It happens everywhere. But in 2001, Tacoma was the first city in the state to develop what they called an Alcohol Impact Area. Nowadays, there are many of these Alcohol Impact Areas in Washington state. They exist in Olympia, Spokane, and Pioneer Square, but the first in the state started in an area that makes up Tacoma’s Downtown and Hilltop neighborhoods.
The basic idea was that in this area, retailers and bars and such would no longer be allowed to sell high-alcohol-content, low-cost beverages such as malt liquors and fortified wines -- something you might buy if you were looking to get super drunk, super quick for super cheap. And more often than not, when someone found a bottle in their front yard, or a police officer would get a call about public drunkenness, it involved these types of alcohol.
This was a big problem in Tacoma. So the basic idea was to get rid of these types of alcohol in these areas, and potentially see a reduction in litter, public drunkenness, calls to the EMTs, calls to the police and so on. So they did it. The Alcohol Impact Area was created in Tacoma’s Downtown/Hilltop area, and you could no longer buy these drinks there.
The results were very positive, with reductions across the board. And officials in Tacoma noticed that number too. So Tacoma created new Alcohol Impact Areas on the Eastside, and then in North and West Tacoma. So basically, the only places you can get these high-volume, low-cost drinks are in South Tacoma and near the Port of Tacoma.
With a plan like this, there are some certainties. If there are fewer calls to the police or EMT’s, it’s a good thing. If residents aren’t finding garbage in their yards as much, of course they are happier. But there has been some concern that simply removing a certain type of alcohol does not address the addiction. There are many programs in place to help in a variety of ways, but there remains to be an approach that is widely agreed upon to address the core issue of addiction.
