A lot of the focus on Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo’s proposal to ban miniature liquor bottles in the city has been on the successful campaigns to ban the bottles in other communities in the Commonwealth, including next door in Chelsea.
On Monday, a delegation from Chelsea, including former Council President Roy Avellaneda, Police Chief Keith Houghton, and North Suffolk Community Services navigator Jason Owens spoke in front of the Boston council’s subcommittee and licensure regarding Arroyo’s proposed bill. Under Avellaneda’s advocacy, Chelsea was the first city to ban the miniature liquor bottles in the state.
In his testimony, Avellaneda related how the impetus for the ban came out of the review of budget numbers related to the opioid crisis and the use of Narcan by first responders.
“We were getting the data, and I noticed in the data, the numbers were broken down to responses to opiates and the responses to alcoholism,” he said.
Those numbers showed the number of calls and intakes for alcoholism were eight times greater than those for opiates.
“So it begged the question, if we were doing so much at the time and spending so much at the time, spending so much money on the issue of opiates, yet obviously, the problem with what’s going on, where our resources were being directed and used was for alcoholism that was going on in our community, then shouldn’t we do something there?” said Avellaneda.
Avellaneda added that he had also served on the License Commission, which was responsible for punishing restaurants that overserved customers, while there was no oversight for retail liquor establishments that overserved a segment of their clientele.
The ban in Chelsea began with 50 milliliter bottles, and was then extended to 100 milliliter bottles.
Growing up in a minority, low-income neighborhood, Avellaneda said the proliferation of discarded liquor bottles is a sign of a societal problem much like discarded needles.
“I don’t know what the numbers are in Boston, but when emergency services responds to a call (in Chelsea), you have Cataldo Ambulance, you have a fire engine with four individuals on that truck, and you have a police officer, maybe two police officers,” Avellaneda said. “That’s the resources we have on every call. It begs the question … if they are on this call, what are they not responding to?”
When Chelsea put the ban into effect, Avellaneda said the city saw an immediate impact, with calls for alcoholism falling from over 700 in the year before the ban went into effect, to just over 200 in the year before the Covid pandemic.
“I will say, we knew the retail stores were catering to the alcoholics,” said Avellaneda. “When you tell me that 25 to 35 percent of your business is selling minis … what does that tell me about your business, who you are catering to?”
Once the ban went into effect in Chelsea, Avellaneda said it was a boon for the downtown area. Prior to the ban, he said people didn’t want to bring their children to the area or visit other businesses when people were passed out on the lawns or streets.
“We’ve had an increase in jobs, and we have less vacancy in our storefronts downtown,” said Avellaneda.
The former councilor also noted that the problem is not exclusive to communities with the same demographics as Chelsea.
“This problem is pervasive, it’s not just in neighborhoods like Chelsea, it is across all social, economic areas,” he said. “Wherever these retail stores are located, you will see these sorts of individuals, and they need help. But like the drug war, you cannot just help those victims, you have to go after the perpetrators who are catering specifically to them.”
Houghton said he did the research on the issue several years ago and he was alarmed.
“The war was on drugs, the war was on opioids, and it was eight times more likely in Chelsea that you would be hospitalized on an ambulance ride for alcohol-related issues,” said Houghton. “When all our resources were going to the opioid problem, we were missing out on the illness, which was hidden, and the business district was being decimated, the Broadway corridor.”
Houghton said what police saw was the 50 milliliter bottles being purchased continuously.
“We would put them in protective custody, and if you know the law, if you are inebriated, the last place I want to put you is in a cell at the Chelsea Police Department,” said Houghton. “I believe it is inhumane, I believe we are getting to the point where hospitalization, just like opioid use, has to be used.”
Since the ban, Houghton said the department’s call load has gone down significantly.
Owens said he is a resident of Chelsea and has been an outreach worker for 16 years.
“I’m out there every day and I’m encountering all these individuals, so what we do as Navigators is we try to connect individuals to services if they are suffering from alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental health crises,” said Owens.
Owens said most of the alcoholic men that are dealt with on a regular basis are Central American. In the past, he said there were about 20 men who were out constantly panhandling and buying mini-bottles on an hourly basis.
“They get a quarter here, five cents here, fifty cents, a dollar, and they run right into the liquor store,” said Owens. “Sometimes they were running right into liquor stores where their pictures were up as a do not sell, and they were still getting them. When we did finally get the ban in the city of Chelsea, I noticed that calls for service … went down significantly.”