Instead of a Single Beer, a Second Beer

[The Straight Story]

Instead of a Single Beer, a Second Beer

Walk into the Chinatown Market at Sixth and H Streets NW and for $3.25, tax included, you can get yourself two 24-ounce cans of Miller Lite, Bud Light or Steel Reserve. Or if that's not strong enough, the same amount of money will get you the same amount of Full Tilt, a malt liquor that contains 12 percent alcohol by volume.

Ask any community activist, and that would seem like a problem. That's a lot of booze for not a whole lot of money, after all, and the clientele outside the market doesn't seem to have much of a problem drinking on nearby sidewalks.

Ironically enough, the two-pack is the new single beer -- the very same single beer that was banned throughout large swaths of the city starting in 2008. That year, the D.C. Council made selling single beers illegal in wards 2 and 6 and in Mount Pleasant; since then, the ban has expanded to cover all of wards 4, 7 and 8. (Fearing the voting power of those likely to drink large single-sale bottles of Belgian ales, exceptions were worked into the law for wards 2 and 6.)

But much like prohibition just pushed drinking underground, the ban on single beers has just led producers to slap two cans together and price them competitively. In Mount Pleasant, four of the five corner stores or bodegas on the main commercial strip sell two-packs. Head up 14th Street into Ward 4, and any number of markets offer twice the amount of alcohol for not twice the price of what single beers used to cost. (At Connecticut Avenue Wine and Liquor in Dupont Circle, which enjoys an exception, a single 24-ounce can of Bud retails for $2.75.)


http://dcist.com/2011/10/single_beer_ban.php

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. I was in Charlotte many years ago and a single Bud was a buck but for

two bucks you could buy a 6 pack. This was supposed to discourage drinking.