This Week in the Mercury

Freaks and Geeks

Film

Freaks and Geeks

Chronicle: With Great Power Comes Great Emo


Living Landscapes

Music

Living Landscapes

Lost Lander Explores Inner and Outer Space



  |  

Friday, February 5, 2010

Drunk / News City Wants to Ban Malt Liquor Sales Downtown

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:35 PM

No.
  • No.
Three Portland Police officers and a city outreach worker sat at a long table in the Portland Building last night behind cans of Joose, MAX and Steel Reserve. A city attempt to curb street drinking and public inebriation downtown could soon lead to a ban on sales of these cheap, strong types of booze in Old Town, the Pearl District and downtown.

Theresa Marchetti of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement says that according to city stats, the downtown area within the I-405 loop is responsible for 53 percent of arrests for public intoxication. "This is a pretty compelling problem in a pretty concentrated area," says Marchetti. To combat public boozery, the police and city want all of the central city's 68 bodegas, grocery stores and other vendors of singles and six-packs to join an association dubbed "VIBRANT PDX", or "Volunteering as Businesses to Reduce Alcohol-related Nuisances Together." As members of the group, the businesses would agree not to sell:

• Single containers of 12 or 16 ounce beer
• Boxed wine or wine over two liters per container
• Any malt liquor which is 5.57 percent alcohol or wine over 13.5 percent alcohol by volume.
• Single containers of beer or hard cider over 22 ounces, unless they cost more than 22 cents an ounce.

Oregon craft microbrews, significantly, are exempted from the ban. "The intent is to restrict beverages known to be favored by street drinkers," says Marchetti. If the voluntary ban is not effective, Marchetti says the city would consider pushing to make it mandatory.

The roughly 20 downtown small business owners who turned up to last night's meeting were highly critical of the plan. "I think they're really addressing the symptom rather than the problem," said a female corner-store owner who would not give her name for fear of stirring up up trouble. "This is where homeless people and people who are poor get their free food, it's where they get their services, it's where their bed is and it's where they buy their drinks. It's not the stores' fault these people live down here."

Numerous store owners at last night's meeting were concerned that the ban would cut their sales in already hard times. Doug Peterson, who successfully fought off city closure last year, says his store does not sell to street drinkers, but the across-the-board ban would hurt his store. Several owners agreed that 16 ounce beers are among their top-selling items.

Plaid Pantry president Chris Girard, who owns stores in both Portland and Seattle, says that when Seattle instituted a similar malt liquor ban a decade ago, his sales did not take a significant hit. "We don't sell to street drinkers, so it didn't affect our sales. But a ban like this only works if everyone gets on board," says Girard.

After Seattle banned sales of potent and inexpensive booze in its downtown core, The Stranger noted, "It was an innovative piece of public policy that has unfortunately been undermined by a citywide system of buses and sidewalks. Resourceful drunks have migrated out of Pioneer Square and up to Capitol Hill, where they can get just as bombed on Night Train Express as they did a half-mile away. "

Street Roots director Israel Bayer agrees that the proposed ban would be a "cosmetic approach." "It more or less says to Portlanders: if you have money, you're free and clear... it doesn't take a rocket scientist for a person to figure out if you can't buy Mad Dog or potent booze at the corner store, than you can go to a liquor store and buy a $5 bottle whiskey or Everclear," says Bayer.

Portland police officer Mike Boyer responded to similar criticism at the meeting saying he is optimistic that banning sales of cheap, strong drinks at corner stores could cut public intoxication downtown. "This problem is involved with much larger issues, but this one small piece of the puzzle," says Boyer.

Two more meetings are coming up on the proposed ban. Info here.

 

Comments (21) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
This plan is destined for failure. Either at ever getting off the ground, or at fixing any problems.
Posted by Graham on February 5, 2010 at 1:47 PM · Report
2
I suspect that they wouldn't legislate against "Any beverage with contains over 5.57 percent alcohol" [and I am assuming that is Ms. Mirk's typo] because that would get rid of all wine sales as well.
Posted by Number Six on February 5, 2010 at 1:53 PM · Report
3
Also, I think the deal will only work if the corner markets can sell marijuana to replace lost revenue. That seems fair and less dangerous.
Posted by Number Six on February 5, 2010 at 1:55 PM · Report
4
Why box wine? I've never seen a street drinker sipping from a spigot sticking out of a box-shaped paper bag.
Posted by DemonJuice on February 5, 2010 at 1:59 PM · Report
5
I'm not opposed to the single can ban, but the boxed wine ban seem like a bad idea: Cheap&easy booze is the problem and there are some boxed wines that are more expensive per liter than wine in a bottle. In any case, a 3 liter box of wine can run upwards of $20 which is significantly more than someone who is homeless and needs a cheap fix can afford; Boxed wine is an investment, unless it is for a party it will often last several weeks in my house before it gets finished off. That is a complete reverse of the single can rule, it is like banning cases of beer, but still allowing single can sales.

Of course, I'm only opposed to bans that affect me: The boxed wine one would and I've bought some downtown on my way home from work, but I've never bought a single can except in a bar.
Posted by Matthew D on February 5, 2010 at 2:11 PM · Report
6
@DemonJuice

The sophisticated street drinker with a discerning palette prefers spigots from box shaped paper bags. It's a well known fact.
Posted by BlackedOut on February 5, 2010 at 2:14 PM · Report
7
Number Six,

thanks for the correction. I checked and, yes, there are different standards for wine. I updated the post with the correct amount - 5.75 percent for malt liquor and 13.5 percent for wine.
Posted by s.mirk on February 5, 2010 at 2:22 PM · Report
8
@Matthew_D Similarly, there are numerous high-end wines that exceed 13.5 percent. Lots of reds coming out of California (ooh, maybe this is a veiled attack on Napa), Ports and desert wines might find their way into this ban. Other than that, this at least seems to be a more focused plan than the initial reports a few months ago that they were hoping to ban most things over 5% or something like that. Still not sure how I feel about it, but at least they seem to be targeting the offenders' beverages of choice (or circumstance).
Posted by luckymike on February 5, 2010 at 2:48 PM · Report
9
They tried this in California and it didn't work in large part because regulating sales of specific types of alcohol falls under the State jurisdiction and not to local law enforcement or municipal governments. There is ample case law surrounding this issue. Secondly, if they target a specific geographic area for special enforcement they will be litigated and lose. Los Angeles targeted South Central Los Angeles for just such an effort in the mid 80's, lost the legal challenge and ended up enacting some City wide standards which still did not address specific types of sales, but rather best practices. If the OLCC was willing to aggressively enforce existing laws about sales to obviously intoxicated patrons those few retail bad actors which represent the majority of problem sales could be squeezed into compliance through financial incentives. There are some approaches that can mitigate the problem but outright bans won't work
Posted by alainb1 on February 5, 2010 at 3:42 PM · Report
10
They tried this in DT Seattle years ago. Not sure how it turned out. I think the stores just over the boundary of the Zone of Banishment saw a nice spike in malt liquor sales. It would be excellent for the Plaid Pantry on East Burnside.

Are gentiles allowed to drink Joose?
(I know, bad joke)
Posted by Blabby on February 5, 2010 at 3:50 PM · Report
11
What about the carbon impact of switching from boxes to glass bottles of carlo rossi?
Posted by OLSiSi on February 5, 2010 at 3:59 PM · Report
12
I smell the Portland Business Alliance. Where are they? Where are they? They're hiding behind this, somewhere...surely...
Posted by Matt Davis on February 5, 2010 at 7:24 PM · Report
13
I am against targeting certain neighborhoods. If they want to do this is one place in Oregon, do it every place. Another thing, build more shelters and treatment centers. No one area should be targeted, in my opinion--I don't believe in single-outing one neighborhood.
Posted by Blogs~threat to real news on February 5, 2010 at 9:36 PM · Report
14
Hi Janelle! Good to see you around here, I take it you still alive and well and not the victim of any ID theft by possible felons.

Keep in touch.
Posted by Matthew D on February 5, 2010 at 10:18 PM · Report
15
3 Buck Chuck + HRD or Everclear = Crazy Delicious.
Posted by LawyerPepper on February 6, 2010 at 12:07 AM · Report
16
Actually, wine can be sold over 13.5% at 25c an ounce. Boxed wine is a favorite of the street youth, who take the highly mobile bag out of the box and drink it straight from the spigot.

If you would like more information, give me a call.

Theresa Marchetti
503-823-3092
Posted by tsm on February 6, 2010 at 1:25 AM · Report
17
The drunken nonsense that you deal with downtown is rarely of the sauced up street person variety. It's more the douche bags stumbling out of Kells/Dirty/Dantes.
I live downtown and will be damned if I have start crossing a bridge to buy wine.

Kids living on the street drink because they're lives suck. "What's that? I can't buy a can Steel Reserve? Suddenly my mental illness has disappeared. And I have forgotten about all of those times my older brother bad touched me." This is not going to happen.

Try harder.
Posted by themme on February 6, 2010 at 9:56 AM · Report
18
Matt Davis strikes again. Matt Davis is the kind of "blogger" who reports on things simply to get a rise out of people. I met him at the Future of Portland Media event at the Stag Building last year. We were sitting inside of a breakout session for the Non-Profit business model, AKA OPB. There he complained about lack of access to the media themselves. Ironically enough, he is an agent of for-profit business model, the Portland Mercury.

Now he is complaining about the PBA (Portland Business Alliance) being involved somehow. Of course they are, however this is a good thing. Portland is maturing into a real city and the children of its forgotten past continue to complain. Matt, again, I ask you to please grow up and stop abusing your "power" as a "blogger".
Posted by BretBernhoft on February 6, 2010 at 5:28 PM · Report
19
This ban sounds pretty stupid to me. It seems to say that if you're a drunken douchebag or date rapist with a credit card, go ahead and be drunk and rowdy. If you're poor however, get the hell out of here.

MD, you should start calling yourself a PowerBlogger TM. (You'll have to trademark it, of course).
@Bret, you're clearly some kind of genius.
Posted by Sarahfina on February 6, 2010 at 8:55 PM · Report
20
How about a ban on the sale of Axe Body Spray downtown? I think that's a cause we could all support.
Posted by pork chop on February 7, 2010 at 11:33 AM · Report
21
a) Mike Boyer is a civillian, not a police officer.
b) The last time our country tried prohibition, we got the mafia. What's the city version of that? Diet mafia? Jersey Shore?
c) This is class bias, pure and simple. Poor folk? Fuck you. Middle class? Grab that bottle of Shiraz and gulp away.
d) The vast, VAST majority of these bottles and cans are bought for legit purposes (ie: the are brought home to one of the 3,000 SRO hotel rooms and drank there rather than on the sidewalk). If something is misused in a criminal manner 0.01% of the time, do you ban it? We would have to ban cars, guns, spray paint and glass tubes if that were acceptable logic.
Posted by Anonymos Alcoholic on March 11, 2010 at 3:57 PM · Report

Add a comment

Our Friends

Our Enemies

/images/adoftheweek.gif

ad of the day

The Handyman Pro - Your Honey-Do Specialist
Don’t let our name fool you. The Handyman Pro, LLC is a repair and remodel service provider with over 25-years experience. We cover all aspects of construction and repairs for residential and commercial clients.go


post an ad

All contents © Index Newspapers, LLC

115 SW Ash St. Suite 600
Portland, OR 97204

Contact Info | Privacy Policy | Production Guidelines | Terms of Use