Baltimore is trying to disrupt the often-overlooked link between alcohol and gun, reports Ted Alcorn for The Trace. And a recent study suggests that earlier closures of alcohol outlets in some neighborhoods may be playing an unheralded role in the city’s decline in homicides. Take Ashley Long’s killing in 2017, which was the tragic product of a complicated set of factors, Alcorn writes, including a young man primed to retaliate, and with easy access to a handgun. But it also took place in a neighborhood saturated with alcohol businesses. On the nearest corner, Q’s Liquor sits across from the Three W’s Tavern, and three more alcohol outlets that sell beverages to go or for drinking on the premises — Club Luzerne, Red Door, and Winston Lounge — are within as many blocks. Plus, both of the women were likely intoxicated, according to her brother, Alex Long. “Definitely alcohol was a contributing factor,” he said.
Decades of research has shown that alcohol contributes to violence in a couple of ways. Where alcohol businesses cluster, violence follows. And although most people who consume alcohol do so safely, people who have been drinking are also more prone to conflict. Perpetrators of homicide are rarely apprehended in time to measure their toxicology, but a global meta-analysis found that about half of killers were under the influence of alcohol at the time of their crimes. Data is more reliably collected from the dead, and in Baltimore between 2017 and 2021, nearly a quarter of homicide victims had alcohol in their blood, according to the Maryland Violent Death Reporting System, similar to patterns nationwide. Both scientists and community leaders insist that drawing a connection between alcohol and violence is not about blaming victims. If anything, they say, it spotlights how alcohol’s availability in a neighborhood is shaped by policies beyond the reach of any individual resident. “If we could get all the laws that we have around alcohol outlets enforced, it would be transformative,” said Dr. Debra Furr-Holden, an epidemiologist who spent more than a decade documenting alcohol’s impact on Baltimore residents.