Underage Drinking: Success Stories

With support from the OJJDP Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws Initiative, community organizations, enforcement agencies, youth, and other concerned citizens are working collaboratively to change local ordinances and enforcement practices.

Citizens in Anchorage , Alaska have seized on alcohol licensing as a way to reduce alcohol-related harm.  Their efforts are a lesson in civic activism and for everyone concerned about problem drinking.

In Alaska , local governments decide where alcohol outlets are allowed to open.  Alaskan law sets a fixed number of permits for the state; anyone wishing to sell alcohol must first purchase a permit from a current permit-holder. The state approves the permit, but local government must approve the location of the outlet.  In Anchorage , the eleven-member City Assembly makes those decisions, and has traditionally done so with little community input.

This began to change in the 1980s, with a health worker named Joan Diamond.  Recognizing that alcohol contributes to many of the problems facing Anchorage– Diamond estimates that a full third of the city’s budget is spent on alcohol-related problems– she discerned the need to address consumption in Anchorage .  She found inspiration in Wittner’s “Manual for Community Planning to Prevent Problems of Alcohol Availability.”  The book led to two insights; first, that alcohol outlets are associated with increased levels of violence, crime, underage drinking, traffic crashes, and fatalities, and, second, that permit processes can be used to control the availability of alcohol.

To prove that the former was true for Anchorage , Diamond mapped the location of every alcohol outlet in the city.  She overlaid that map with traffic and crime data, making the correlation between outlet density and alcohol-related problems immediately clear.  Diamond then took her case to the communities of Anchorage .  Using her maps, she demonstrated the adverse consequences associated with alcohol retailers, and encouraged them to use the permitting process to block alcohol outlets in their neighborhoods.

Armed with this knowledge, communities embraced the permit process and since have achieved notable success.  One community blocked the conversion of an old fast-food outlet to a liquor store. Another com-munity kept a former pizza restaurant from being converted to a liquor store in a block that included a work-to-welfare center, a day care, and an unemploy-ment office.  Concerned residents have twice blocked a proposed convenience store permit.

While the increased community involvement has lead to success, the City Assembly still retains the final say over permit locations, and has overruled residents’ objections in some cases.  But under increasing pressure, city and state agencies are now working together to look at future ordinances that will address the health, safety, and economic impact of alcohol sales in the city of Anchorage .  The change has come about because concerned citizens engaged their local government.  “Local control is easier,” says Diamond, “local government is more sensitive to the community.”

For more information, contact Joan Diamond by phone at 907-343-6583, or by e-mail: [email protected], or Will Hurr, Coordinator for Alaska , by phone at 907-465-2116 or by e-mail: [email protected].