With three major colleges in its city limits, it comes as no surprise that Tallahassee was named the drunkest city in Florida, according to a recent study by 24/7 Wall Street. The financial news company identified the drunkest city in each state. The study also identifies other areas affected by excessive drinking such as alcohol-related driving deaths.
This new title comes just a month after Florida State University announced it would begin selling beer and alcohol at football games.
FSU’s latest venture into alcohol sales has been in the making for over a year. FSU has sold beer at softball and baseball games for nearly two seasons now.
The alcohol will be available for purchase at five locations during game day festivities, including two central locations inside of the stadium.
The sales will commence 10 minutes prior to the start of the game and end 10 minutes promptly after the game ends and consumed in a designated area.
This expansion of concessions is coupled with an increased police force to help monitor alcohol sales.
There is no news if Florida A&M intends to follow FSU’s footsteps in this business venture.
The definition for excessive alcohol use used for the purpose of the survey was listed by the CDC as “five or more drinks on one occasion for men and four or more on one occasion for women.”
Almost 21 percent of adults in Tallahassee admit to binge drinking or heavy drinking. This number is more than three percent higher than the state average of 17.5 percent.
While one might assume that this ranking is a result of the college population, that may not be entirely accurate. The city population includes about 70,000 college students, which is just shy of 50 percent of the city’s population.
However, it is safe to assume this effect on the safety of Leon County’s streets.
Leon County had 636 traffic violations for driving under the influence in 2018, according to Florida Uniform Traffic Citation.
The Sunshine State had 5,125 alcohol-related crashes last year. Of those crashes there were 374 fatalities in 2017, according to Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
With FAMU’s homecoming festivities taking place this week, FSU homecoming soon to come and Halloween festivities later in the month, all of which contain celebrations associated with drinking, some may want to take precautions and call an Uber instead of drinking and driving.