More Tales of Sacramento At Night

Last night, Sparky and I walked past a nice house with a perfectly-manicured lawn. There was some kind of party going on inside. Just as we walked past, the front door opened, a handsome man in his 30's came out of the house, fell like a tree on the perfect lawn, and started throwing up.

Sparky wisely chose to keep on walking, but I started thinking about how the man's private drunkenness had inadvertently become public, and about public drunkenness in general in California, compared to Utah. Alcohol sure helped make the move jarring when I first came to Sacramento from Salt Lake City in 1990. My first day of work, I went to the bus stop in Citrus Heights, and found a man there drinking beer - at 8 a.m.: never see that in Salt Lake City!

Here in Sacramento, I'd go to to the supermarket and ask, "why was there such a wider range of consumer choices in Utah, rather than this richer California place?" Then you'd walk around the corner and see the vast floor space of the store wasted on beer, wine, and spirits. The answer was obvious - alcohol crowded out consumer products, so instead of, say, eight different kinds of batteries, you could get only three kinds.

Utah law mildly harrasses alcohol drinkers. Alcohol is sold ONLY in state liquor stores, and bright, splashy advertising displays there are banned. Scarce night clubs allow members-only drinking, and even though it's laughably easy to get someone to sponsor your entry into the club, it places an additional barrier to easy entry into the club. Mixed drinks cannot be sold: if you want a mixed drink, they sell you the components, which you have to mix yourself. When it became wide knowledge that limousine services were serving alcohol to Salt Lake City residents riding to distant stateline Nevada casinos, it became a scandal, and the Utah legislature passed a law specifically banning the practice.

The official harrassment in Utah is certainly not enough to deter serious alcoholics, but it does help place a stigma on the drinking of liquor. California, the epicenter of one of the world's greatest viticultures (oh my God! take a look at the Napa Valley!), DOES NOT place a stigma on the sale and consumption of alcohol. The net effect is much more public drunkenness in California compared to Utah. Sometimes the effect is amusing: in 1990, the Salt Lake City TV stations carried lurid specials on the seediness of State Street - any major thoroughfare in Sacramento is seedier than State Street!

I love California's liberality, but I also like Utah's liquor laws. That extra Mormon touch keeps a place nice. I'm sure it helps keep Las Vegas, Nevada nicer than it could be. Las Vegas is one of Mormonism's most important cities, but it is also one of the world's greatest dens of sin. There is a tremendous cultural clash there, and I'm sure there is a price to pay for that. Still, keep that tension - keep the neighborhoods clean and safe, and the Strip fraught with illicit danger, and everyone will be happy!