The Wettest Dry Town

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Every day the cases come in, the heavy days are Fridays and Saturdays, just in time for the weekend parties. As people joke, we have the wettest dry town in Delta, or that matter probably in Alaska. Says Jack Flood, from our director of the Phillips Alcoholism Treatment Center in Bethel, the economic center of Southwestern Alaska. What he's referring to is the fact that Bethel has no liquor store, no rebar, both outlawed 10 years ago, but the alcohol flows in any way. Coming from outlets in Anchorage and hours fly away to this community of 3,500, as if nothing were stopping it.

Bethel is a dry town, where nothing it seems gets in the way of alcohol consumption. If it doesn't come from a legal source outside the city, then it's sold by bootlakers. I'm in Hoffman, he was Bethel City Manager. Because we've been dry for approximately 10 years, people have found ways to go around the system. ESPs, you can order alcohol through the mail order system and have it here virtually in one day. A bottle only a phone call away, such importation is legal, selling it within the city limits isn't. That law was enacted 10 years ago, and the ordinance comes under nearly annual attack. Voters are asked periodically to reassess their dry status and decide if it's working. And a number of citizens have concluded it isn't. But Bethel isn't an isolated pocket of legal sobriety in the bush, of the surrounding 56 villages, all but one are dry.

And some have enacted harsher measures than Bethel to fight a worsening problem of binge drinking, violence, and sometimes death due to alcohol abuse. At the present, 29 villages have voted themselves completely dry, or both sale and importation of alcohol are prohibited. Under a recent state law passed in 1981, called the local option law. The legislature approved the measure as a means of giving villagers control over their alcohol abuse problems and epidemic of abuse in some communities. Since statehood, Eskimo villages have had few means of self-determination in terms of acting upon their individual situations. The local option law gave them a number of choices as a first step toward combating alcohol abuse. Opting for a no sale, no importation, or no sale, are doing nothing. And some villages have voted for one, then after a trial run, try another option. The point of all of that was to give communities a full range of choices that would be enforceable under state law.

Carol Baker is the past coordinator of the Alaska Legal Services Alcohol Project. She says communities such as Bethel, which question the wisdom of being dry, are a testament to the flexibility of the law. And I think that's the community reassessing its needs. In 1986 or 1988, that could change again, because communities needs and concerns change depending on what the social structure is at the time. The natural question after two years is, has the local option law worked? Some villages that have put the law into place think it has. And because they're close to Bethel, they worry how that hub communities decisions toward alcohol will affect them. The 1983 study, Village Alcohol Control and the local option law, put out by the University of Alaska Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, addressed both questions after researching a number of villages. And it concluded, the local option law had two significant effects on the community, gaining local control, and reducing alcohol consumption. Dr. Thomas Loner, on the left, and Kenneth Duff, wrote the study.

The feeling of being in control, the actual perception that people have control over their own lives, has very positive rewards. It makes people feel good about themselves, yet it makes them feel that they have some direction when all the forces around them are telling them they are not in control. If you reduce the public visibility of drunken behavior, etc., you lessen some of the learning processes for the younger generation of this is acceptable and unacceptable. Loner and Duff refused to make any conclusions whether or not the law has been successful. They say that depends on the individual community. They do say it hasn't gotten rid of alcohol, but in some cases the pattern of use has changed from binge drinking, just spreading consumption over a longer period of time. And they write, what is achieved by the local option law may not be controlled over alcohol, but control over community. Most villages are tired of the deaths and the accidents related to uncontrolled drinking.

They're tired of it, they fear for the future of the community, they fear for the future of the young men and the young women in the community, and they fear that the culture of that community may die out. And with the local option law, Loner says, drinking patterns change. Some communities will not settle for anything but an absolute reduction, but that's almost impossible to have. Well, then if they're really not altering alcohol use, what they really are altering is behavior. So one of the behaviors that has changed is people are bringing in less alcohol. So they're bringing it out and they're bringing alcohol in and carefully using the alcohol over a longer period of time, because they don't know when they're going to get their next supplies, so they tend to binge drink less. On the legal side of the issue are the state troopers who support the local option law. Captain Joe to Temple is the commander of the Bethel-Nome troopers. Our experience has been, first of all, they'll drink up all their booze, yeah, I know there will be some arrests.

But generally speaking, we have seen a dramatic decrease in violent crimes in the villages that are dry. A very evident decrease. But not unexpectedly, other crimes increase. There's more bootlegging, as well as smuggling in alcohol on boats, snowmobiles, and the commercial planes that fly to the villages. But according to Ken Duff, a village may or may not choose to pursue these illegales depending on the mood of the times. In some communities, again, with the idea of a tragedy taking place, they vote in the local option law, but they don't want the rigidity of enforcement in the long run. And yes, they might tolerate some limited importation on a no sale, no importation. But then as they start perceiving the problem as being more public than they operationalize again and begin an enforcement process. Generally, I would suppose that that would happen, yeah.

I mean, I can't say for sure that we allow people in the villages that are quiet drinks to drink. The home brew is legal in the villages. And we're seeing an increase in use of home brew and in crimes caused from that, but still. How are we to tell whether they're drunk on home brew, whether they're drunk on store-bought whiskey? So, yeah, the person that's allowed in this early in causing trouble is of course bringing attention to himself. And he's going to be the one that the village public safety officer and the trooper were constable, seeks out. Some villages initially see the local option as a panacea to their alcohol problems. But those in alcohol treatment are concerned that nothing else will be done. I think the intentions behind the local option were good. Unfortunately, what I think did not occur with some element of follow-up. Jack Flood, since the local option law, is simply a chance for a village to take a breath from the disturbances that accompany alcohol abuse.

To my knowledge, very few communities have taken that time to use or have had the understanding of what to do next. To try to find some alternative measures. What we found was that a lot of the communities were actually voting for a total ban on alcohol. We're thinking that's what the local option law was, and we're very frustrated when they found out that what they really wanted was in fact not going to happen. And there was a lot of confusion around the voting. What are we voting on? We thought that voting no alcohol, where in fact voting no meant they were voting down the proposition. I think there was a lots of time and energy placed on getting people to understand how the law could work. Or at least the process for getting the local option to be adopted. I don't know how much work was actually provided in getting people resources and some skills or coming back with hands-on to show them that they were only in a more tour in there. Some see the alternative measures that Flood talks about as teaching villagers how to release the inevitable pressures associated with small communities through other means than drinking.

In addition to the normal pressures people experience in their relationships they say there is the additional factor of the 20th century, suddenly coming upon villages that were once nomadic, hunting and gathering societies. And Chuck Hunt, a recovering alcoholic, doesn't think villagers are the only ones susceptible to the term to drinking. If I take a person from Florida and take him down to New York and tell him, hey, you're going to go out there and hunt and fish for the rest of your life. I don't think that person will make it because they don't know how. And the same thing occurs with a person that has learned how to live in Hunt from the time he can remember. And on top of that he doesn't have any education, what kind of frustration he's going to go through. Sometimes some place along the line he's going to find a way to make himself feel just a little bit more comfortable.

And the best way people around here or anywhere else in the state of Alaska have ground is to have booze. But if a village bans the importation of alcohol, where does this supposed comfort come from? The answer everyone gives is that what is dry town, Bethel. 99% of it, yeah. Either farm or through Bethel. It'll come in on the major airline shipments. Sun through the mail, but generally it's air freight and then continues on to the communities. A large number of villages throughout the state look to their regional centers as the source of their problems. They were very much like, they were very much hope that those communities would vote to become dry themselves. The fact that they don't create a problem immediately for the villages that have voted to ban the sale and importation. We have hard data that that really easily supports that those some most of those villages who had voted dry all of a sudden the balloon squeezed and it came to the hub, which is Bethel.

And as we've seen Bethel Regional Center for 56 villages, it's not really dry to begin with. And some of the town are considering liberalizing that further. Going dry, says Leonard Hoffman, just wasn't the answer. I don't think that that's going to be the case. Because alcohol is going to come in one way or another from unless the whole world goes dry. For those who would like to see Bethel vote wet, the reasons for that change are compelling. And I think that somehow we have to face the fact that alcohol, no matter what is going to be a part of our children's lives and it's going to be a part of our lives. I like the villages Bethel is changing.

One of the arguments proponents use for reintroducing the legal sale of alcohol is they say Bethel is different. And wouldn't necessarily suffer the same abuse problems that did in the past. I don't even know whether it's fair to look back on history and say what it was or describe what it was because it's changed. The composition of the communities have changed and the composition of Bethel has changed and I don't know whether it's a fair analogy anymore. In fact, Bethel's composition has changed from a predominantly native population to a 50-50 split with non-natives. Most of whom came from places where alcohol sale was legal. Well, alternatives have to be viewed with an open mind and the community come to some decision. I guess the question that this community is going to have to answer is are they valued deal with it yet? Is it time? Maybe it is? I don't know. Tom for now is the chief of the Bethel Police Department. He says he would support a return to being wet because of its effect on bootlegging.

I'm actually fighting a no-win war on bootlegging out here. There's no way that the Police Department is ever going to be able to stop bootlegging in this community. We have to be realistic about that. We arrest some. We convict some. And maybe after the second conviction, maybe they will be convicted of the felony and go away for a while. And that will stop that person from bootlegging. The only way you're going to stop the bootlegging is to price the bootleggers out of business. And by going wet, opening, let's say a liquor store, just a liquor store, for example. We would price another business. There's no doubt that bootlegging would die in this community. Tom, as a loner, things just the opposite would happen that if you had alcohol sales readily available in volume in Bethel, you would be encouraging even more bootlegging. Because people would be buying alcohol in volume from the available store. And then selling it again after hours or selling it to communities that have gone dry by using the normal transportation modes available in the region.

Obviously, it's speculative how much crime would result from going wet. Right now, over 90% of the crime in Bethel is alcohol and drug-related. And much of that is violent. For now, it admits that going wet would mean an initial period of alcohol abuse, but he doesn't think that would last. I think the first year that the community went wet, we would see an increase in alcohol-related crimes. I think that that eventually would level out to an acceptable level as it has done in all other communities in the state. Now, I see an acceptable level. I don't know that you have an acceptable level of crime, but I mean a level that we can handle. From a city revenue standpoint, one of the most compelling reasons for a city-owned liquor store would be the profits generated by such an operation. Officials estimated good, many dollars are lost through bootleggers who obviously don't pay taxes.

And by putting them out of business, if that's indeed the case, will mean more funds going to the city budget. We have the problems, and somehow we have to respond to them. The people are saying in the community right now that we need a human shelter for people. We don't have the funds. The state isn't willing to assist us. There may be a need for a community service patrol program to try to address the people that are on the streets and everybody sees them on a daily basis. And all of these things take money to try to address, especially if they run on a 24-hour basis. The dollars are, we're talking about, three to $400,000 annually. That's a considerable amount of dollars. And I think that if alcohol is here, and it is here, that we should be able to capitalize on it and take some of the profits away from Anchorage, which does not bring a lot of money. Just bring dollars back in here.

ESP suing and other lines and the bootlegers. Those are the people that I think are making dollars off of alcohol right now. Jack Flood gives a conditional support to the idea of going wet, only if that money or a portion of it goes to alcohol treatment. Something that's the victim of recent budget cutbacks and the need of new revenue sources to be effective. But it's suspicious that the money might go elsewhere. If the city feels that they can generate sufficient revenue to operate, to contribute, to have another level of responsibility for the problems in town. I think it behooves them to turn it direct down. But it would be nice to have all those dollar signs decided upon before the project went off. And that way you would know whether what you're buying into it. The community has to get involved and say where they want the dollars spent. And I think that it depends on the local officials that are elected.

They're the ones that decide ultimately where those dollars get spent. And if the people feel that alcohol is a problem, they have to go to the council meetings or elect council members that feel the same way. So that that in fact does happen. Making more money for both can be a compelling reason to go wet. But flood warrants not to consider the issue strictly in terms of dollar signs. I would not want the city to automatically slide into a role of unresponsiveness, I guess, to the sale of alcohol in order to generate revenue. It could be very exciting for the guy at the other end, running up the cash register and how she was. I made $3,000 today. I would not want that attitude to surface. I want some other elements of responsibility. And I don't have an answer on how that might be done.

Despite the fears of increased alcohol related violence, proponents of the city owned liquor store say that problem could be curtailed by stringent controls on the store itself. Although some of those controls they admit aren't yet available at the local level. I favor that idea of doing it with a lot of thought and planning going into the idea. I think initially if we were going to go wet, I think that it would be foolish for us to go totally wet. I think we should experiment with it and work into it gently. We should be looking at controlling the hours, controlling the amount of alcohol, and also working with the local board, trying to control selling alcohol to people that we know are frequent abusers of alcohol. I think that's where the problem exists. And those are the ones that are entering into the picture and we're trying to address. Let's say we could just hypothetically, we could issue liquor cards like Oregon and Washington do.

We could issue city liquor cards. It could be done at the police department or it could be done someplace else where you would come in. You would have your photograph taken and for a $5 fee, you would be given a card, a liquor card that would show your picture on it. Okay, that would be within a title you to purchase liquor. You could set a mount on it if you wanted to or whatever type of restrictions that you wanted to place on it. And obviously, known alcoholics would not be given liquor cards. That would be in violation of state law. The Kale Becky says there is no precedent yet for liquor cards. And that in fact, the state legislature would have to write a law allowing it. And as for refusing sale to known alcoholics. They better have very good reasons that will fly legally if they're going to restrict as to whom gets what? Because that could be selective enforcement and the law doesn't look to kindly unselective enforcement. One final argument is the sort of logic heard for a number of legal issues that alcohol is here already.

So why not make it legal? Alcohol is from my perceptions. Alcohol is here and it's here to stay. And you can order as much alcohol as you want. And you know, you can finish, fill your living room with it. But those in the surrounding villages don't necessarily see it that way. They believe that Bethel were to go wet. Their efforts to stay dry would be undermined. Martin Ivan is the president of the Association of Village Council Presidents. I've seen that in several occasions when Bethel has looked at the question of going wet or dry. They had an impact on the villages around the villages crossed by here. And I think a reason why they were pro-dry. They were pro in keeping Bethel dry because of the problems that was associated with liquor available in Bethel. And when people go back to their villages under the influence, be the driving a snow machine or an airport motor.

They've noticed that a lot of deaths were occurring those wet years. To turn around and liberalize the use in any one of those regional centers again is giving the wrong message to the villages where they are looking for. They think they finally found a solution to their problem. They're not looking for their regional centers to damage that solution. I think the other thing is that you would still have within the communities, the satellite communities, saying we do not want alcohol here. So you would still have more people coming into Bethel doing their drinking in Bethel and returning to the villages either to dry out or their monies run out and they come back home. In fact, a study put out by the Justice Center of the University of Alaska and written by Stephen Kahn substantiates this close tide of Bethel's influence over the surrounding villages. And it said, that Bethel's alcohol control procedures have an impact on surrounding villages as well as Bethel residents is indicated by a survey of frequency of use of the treatment center by town and village residents.

In a similar survey, according to Jack Flood, 70% of those admitted to Philip's alcoholism treatment center were village residents. By the time I see somebody from the village, that's one of the first things that they talk about is to go out and get a problem. Another argument is what some see as a potential increase in accidents among those who drink in Bethel and travel back to their village. People who are intoxicated and on their snow machines or three-wheelers or their boats or their planes traveling back to their communities are in the greatest danger of having serious accidents and dying. So the deaths don't always occur right in the community, but outside of the community as people are traveling when they're not alert enough to be able to protect themselves from problems that occur in the environment or with their equipment. I view this city our village of Bethel equivalent to all other AVCP regional villages.

The rest of the belief among villagers such as Martin Ivan that a vote in Bethel to go wet should be a regional election because of the influence they say liquor control in Bethel has on the rest of the area. As we said, one of the virtues of the local option law is its flexibility. The ability of a community to decide how far it wants to go to control alcohol consumption and then readjust the law as they go along. Some Bethel residents would like to readjust that law to allow alcohol sales while those in the villages would like them to go in the opposite direction and eliminate the community's reputation as the wetest dry town. There is no proposition yet before the voters, but given past history one could appear soon. The relative success of the local option law in the villages could then be tested. I'm Bo Sharpsstein reporting. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.