Red Dog, Mickey’s and their buddy Big Bear aren’t hanging around downtown anymore — at least not as much as they used to.
Sales of high-alcohol malt liquors and wines have been voluntarily banned for the last three years in a swath of central Vancouver called an Alcohol Impact Area, and a street clean-up last month showed that the drinks are cropping up less and less on downtown streets.
The Vancouver Downtown Association conducted its fourth annual cleanup event on May 8, scrubbing and picking up from Fifth Street north to Fourth Plain and Columbia east to C Street.
Of the 87 drink containers volunteers gathered, just under half, 40, were alcoholic, the city reports. Of that, just 12, or 14 percent, were of the “get smashed fast and cheap” variety that are banned for sales in downtown.
Compared with 2007 — when 342 cans and bottles were picked up, and 195 of those were malt liquor and high-octane wine — it’s been a big improvement, city Program and Policy Development Manager Jan Bader said.
“We’re pretty happy with how this has turned out,” Bader said. “It’s worked really well in Vancouver. It’s been a great group effort.”
Bader credited the Alcohol Improvement Area, the establishment of a neighborhood policing program that has an officer stationed downtown regularly, and the Vancouver Downtown Association’s increased efforts to keep the area clean as all having a big impact.
Vancouver is the only city in the state that has established and sustained an Alcohol Impact Area with stores on a purely voluntary basis, she noted.
State law allows the city to designate an alcohol impact area and to ask state regulators to limit hours for sale of beer and wine to be consumed off-premises, restrict the sale of large containers and ban the sale of certain types of alcoholic beverages.
A total of 31 alcoholic drinks are on the city’s list in a variety of sizes, from 16 ounce cans to 40 ounce bottles.
Andrea Damewood: 360-735-4542 or andrea.damewood@columbian.com.
