Single-serve alcohol could be harder to find in some neighborhoods

Banning the sale of single 40 ounce bottles of beer at gas stations or limiting where and when single-serve alcohol products can be sold are two options Sioux Falls could consider in hopes of addressing the thousands of booze-related nuisance calls police tend to each year.

City Councilor Dean Karsky said Monday he will ask his colleagues to look at amending Sioux Falls alcohol rules that allow single cans or bottles of off-sale beer and malt liquor to be bought and sold between 7 a.m. and 2 a.m.

Sioux Falls police fielded about 65,000 nuisance calls since 2012 – the majority being alcohol related. Karsky said restricting access to those products – whether through a city-wide ban, a ban in specific parts of the city or more stringent off-sale hours – could curb those numbers.

"I'm not going to propose anything. I'm just going to say that these are options," he said. "I'm going to let the Land Use Committee take it. I just want them to know what I've been looking at and the directions we could go."

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Karsky said Sioux Falls law enforcement is overburdened with alcohol related problems, and the calls that come in tend to cluster in specific areas of the city – downtown and the Whittier and Pettigrew Heights neighborhoods. "Alcohol-impact areas" – places where alcohol-nuisance calls are most frequent – could be established with more restrictive booze rules, Karsky said.

Chad Campbell, executive director at the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House, said alcohol-impact areas could aid addiction recovery professionals when working with Sioux Falls' transient population. Although alcohol would still be available in higher quantities, financial constraints could keep those most susceptible out of the liquor stores and gas stations.

"The general citizenry doesn't necessarily consume the single-serve liquor beverages. I think it's more those individuals who are more vulnerable in the community and don't have means to financial resources," Campbell said. "If we can eliminate what's readily accessible and readily available to people who are vulnerable, then maybe we can start to work on that addiction piece."

Tamara Wulf, store manager at the Shop 'N Cart, said a single-serve alcohol ban wouldn't stop alcoholics from buying booze at the Minnesota Avenue convenience store.

"Our issue is the liquor," she said. "That's what they are getting drunk off of when they come in here. Most of the people that come in for the big cans, you don't notice if they're drunk or not."

Wulf guessed requiring stores to sell alcohol in larger quantities would be counter-productive.

"They will just buy the tall boys in an eight-pack and they'll just be drinking more. They are going to get really drunk," she said.

But Karsky, who made clear he only wants councilors to know what their options are, said alcohol impact areas aren't a new idea. Arlington Heights, Ill., and Washington, D.C., for instance, have similar policies.

City Councilor Christine Erickson said she's open to discussing the alcohol rules on the books in Sioux Falls, but questioned whether banning single sales in select areas of the city would significantly reduce the number of alcohol nuisance complaints. She's concerned also about the unintended consequences of alcohol impact areas.

"I understand the reasoning behind it. My concern is, too, are they going to get in the car and drive somewhere else to get it? Now we would just be encouraging them to get behind the wheel," she said.

Erickson said a ban in specific areas of town wouldn't alleviate the problem, only move it, similar to what happened when the council banned alcohol from Van Eps and Tower parks.

"It's kicking the can down the road again. That was my concern when we banned the alcohol at Van Eps as well. We weren't really fixing anything – just telling them to go back into the neighborhoods," she said.

It could also prompt beer distributors to find new ways of packaging their products, said Sioux Falls Police Chief Doug Barthel.

"I'm certainly open to looking at it and seeing if that will help. Although, limiting the quantities that people can purchase won't stop people from drinking," he said. "I have heard that in other cities where they've had a similar ban and they prohibited the sale of single-serve alcohol, but they just started selling two packs."

Councilor Rick Kiley, who chairs the Land Use Committee that will hear Karsky's pitch Tuesday, said the results from other cities with similar policies will factor into whether he chooses to support establishing alcohol impact areas.

"We don't want to enact something if others have done so and did not get positive results out of it," Kiley said. "I'm interested in hearing what he has to present, what kind of results they have had."

Mark Walker and Sara Bertsch contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: There have been 65,000 nuisance calls in the past three years. The time frame was incorrect in the original version of this story.

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