Council moves to ban cheap alcohol from downtown Olympia

By Matt Batchelor, The Daily Olympian

The Olympia City Council voted unanimously on first reading to ask eight businesses to voluntarily ban the sale of single-serve containers of beer, malt liquor and fortified wine with high alcohol content. The ban, which creates an Alcohol Impact Area, could become mandatory after six months if the voluntary measure doesn’t work. That would require approval from the Liquor Control Board.

Most of downtown is affected, from the isthmus to the west, Eastside Street to the east, Market Street to the north and 14th Avenue to the south. The ban affects “off-premises” sales, stores that sell alcohol to be consumed elsewhere, not bars.

Ruthie Snyder, the city’s downtown liaison, said public drunkenness is a drain on resources, fueling physical and mental ailments as well as calls for service and emergency room visits. Liquor violations made up a majority of crimes downtown last year with 217 reports.

The drinks being targeted have an alcohol content of 5 percent or more, she said. The biggest offender is a brand called Dog Bite, served in a 24-ounce can, that has 10 percent alcohol and costs about $1.39.  Other brands in the ban include Boone’s Farm, Colt 45, Four Loco, Steel Reserve and Sierra Nevada.

The ban does not include hard liquor, which private stores with at least 10,000 square feet of space can begin selling in June. Snyder said in an interview that Bayview Market is the only store in the downtown area big enough to sell liquor and that the city’s inventories of alcohol-related litter didn’t turn up much hard liquor.

City leaders have been studying a ban for at least the last two years. They’ve combed through trash downtown, identifying which brands of booze are the most prevalent. They’ve reached out to the businesses that would be affected.

People who answered the phone at several downtown convenience stores that would be affected said they did not want to comment.

But Kevin Stormans, whose Bayview Market falls in the Alcohol Impact Area, said he supports the voluntary ban. “Yeah, I think it’s a good idea,” said Stormans, co-owner of Stormans Inc. “We haven’t been selling fortified wine for years.”

Mandatory Alcohol Impact Areas have been set up in Tacoma, Seattle and Spokane, according to the state Liquor Control Board, and Vancouver has been successful with a voluntary ban.

Tacoma has two Alcohol Impact Areas, one of which began being enforced in September 2008. Alcohol-related incidents there dropped from 295 in 2008 to 185 in 2009, police data show. “I think it’s worked beyond our wildest imaginations,” officer Bert Hayes of the Tacoma Police Department said in 2010.