I'll have some of what they're drinking: Magazine claims Boston 'least drunk' city in America
By adamg - 2/5/10 - 11:07 am
Even Salt Lake City is tipsier than Boston, according to a Men's Health report pushed by USA Today.
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shenanigans
By anon (not verified) - 2/5/10 - 11:34 am
Well, according to the data they used it is a good thing.
"data as death rates from alcoholic liver disease, booze-fueled car crashes, frequency of binge-drinking in the past month, number of DUI arrests, and severity of DUI penalties."
This has nothing to do with the number of awesome bars/clubs we have in the city.
1) we have public trans so people drive
2) college kids don't have cars
3) beer is expensive here
4) college kids don't develop liver disease until later...like grad school.
that will be $5, please.
By issacg - 2/5/10 - 11:47 am
Four excellent points. I think the lack of "dollar drafts" around these parts is not given enough credit for stopping some of the bad stuff that happens to younger drinkers - like drinking a lot of really crappy beer.
Perhaps the lack of 'happy hours' helps too?
By Ron Newman - 2/5/10 - 12:16 pm
Temporary discounts on beer are against the law in Massachusetts.
That's only a technicality
By eekanotloggedin (not verified) - 2/5/10 - 4:40 pm
There are absolutely happy hours here. Ever notice how places have a "bar menu" that gets handed out before and after dinner hour and has "specials" including a couple cheap drinks that don't make it onto the dinner menu? Or places that have half-price apps between 4 and 7?
Public transport
By Ron Newman - 2/5/10 - 12:23 pm
may indeed be a mitigating factor here, as these other cities also scored well on the 'least drunk' scale:
82.) Jersey City, NJ B-
85.) Chicago, IL B
86.) San Francisco, CA B
89.) Philadelphia, PA B+
93.) New York, NY A-
95.) Newark, NH A [sic - I'm sure this should be Newark, NJ]
99.) Yonkers, NY A+
On the other hand, this city also has an excellent public transport system, and look where it landed:
37.) Washington, DC D+
Washington DC...
By anon (not verified) - 2/5/10 - 1:46 pm
also has the House of Representatives and the Senate. If I recall correctly, more than a few of these Representatives and Senators have had run ins with the law of the DUI/DWI/OUI kind.
And while DC does have a
By J - 2/5/10 - 9:11 pm
And while DC does have a subway that runs until 3am, until last month, parking was free on saturdays and sundays all day, and weekdays after 6pm.
(Now 10pm downtown, including saturdays)
Meanwhile, I'm in Fresno, CA right now, and there are police checkpoints every weekend. They usually get 10-20 drunk drivers every night.
Which leads to the question....does Fresno have an average level of drunk drivers, but has done the best job at catching them? I think I saw a police sobriety checkpoint in Boston once (storrow drive) but see them here every weekend. And if Fresno is doing the best job in the country at catching DUI drivers, isn't unfair to penalize them by putting them on a list of shame?
If Fresno did not have a single DUI checkpoint, and thus, no DUI arrests....would they jump up (down) the list because "nobody has been arrested for drunk driving"?
So hours after posting this,
By J - 2/6/10 - 12:37 am
So hours after posting this, we go out to a thai restaurant not a mile away. Guess what we passed? A sobriety checkpoint. After leaving the thai restaurant, there was an ad on our cars wipers. It was for the "We be sober" company, which for 20-30 dollars will drive you and your car home.
Perhaps other cities should aspire to be number 1 on this list? I'd like to see more Boston cops running sobriety checkpoints on some of our major avenues.
Well, how about that
By Kaz - 2/5/10 - 11:39 am
A toast to our new status!
Walkable
By Silas (not verified) - 2/5/10 - 11:48 am
Take a look at and you can see that there is a good correlation between a city having a high average walkable score and "Least Drunk".
Cheers Boston for being a walkable city.