The last chance to buy nips on the Island was on Tuesday, and up to the deadline, liquor stores were trying to sell off their stock of nips before the ban went into effect.
At some store counters, the less popular nip bottles were on sale — with popular brands like Fireball already sold out.
Last year, voters in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs passed bylaws banning the sale of single-use bottles of alcohol under 100 mL. The two down-Island towns are the only towns with businesses that sold nips. Eliminating the sale was seen as a way to cut down on littering. And Island stores were given a grace period following the approval of the ban.
While the bylaws were largely celebrated by environmentalists, Vineyard liquor stores fear a drop in sales.
Your Market manager Jamison Loveday said it was uncertain how much of a financial hit the ban would ultimately have on sales, and that likely will be unknown until after the first year of the ban. Whatever wasn’t sold on Tuesday he will have to throw out.
Loveday added that he doesn’t think people will bring in nip bottles from off-Island, although he said buyers may just instead buy the next smallest bottle of alcohol.
“Hopefully people won’t overconsume,” he said, saying the smallest bottles of alcohol beside nips sold at Your Market were 200 mL.
Loveday said some people, anticipating the ban, bought large caches of nips — some between 20 and 50 nip bottles for brands they particularly like.
Loveday also said Your Market had gradually stopped ordering nip bottles as the ban date approached.
On the Vineyard, there are many fans of Fireball, the sweet and cinnamon-flavored whiskey. “That was by far the most popular,” Loveday said, adding that the nips were one of the first to sell out before the ban.
While there may be a hit to liquor businesses, Jamison said he felt that overall people agreed that nip bottles had become a littering problem.
“Hopefully, in the long run, it’ll help clean up the Island,” he said.
While the nip bottle ban may help to reduce litter, it likely won’t do anything to help substance use.
Dr. Brian L. Morris, the mental health and substance use disorder access coordinator at Island Health Care, said he estimates that the ban will do little to stop those suffering from alcoholism from drinking.
“We live on a resort Island,” Morris said. “People come here to party. Some know how to do it responsibly. Some don’t.”
Additionally, Morris pointed out, there is a high rate of alcoholism within the Vineyard’s year-round community.
“Be it a nip, or be it a gallon-size jug, people who ‘have to’ drink are going to,” he said.
Even so, Morris said the Vineyard has a vibrant and robust recovery community that “supports unconditionally” people with alcoholism “caught in the throes of a lethal addiction.” These include several on-Island support groups, professionals who help treat substance use disorders, and the emerging “game-changer” of peer recovery coaching.
Additionally, Morris pointed to institutions on the Island helping those struggling with alcoholism, such as the Vineyard House in Tisbury, the only on-Island sober living facility, and the Red House Recovery Support Center in Oak Bluffs.
“[Red House’s] Peer Recovery Support Center is a ‘by us for us,’ membership-driven model that has been wildly popular since its inception a few years back,” Morris said. “It saves lives.”
Ending nip sales was never about “addressing the issue of people who struggle with alcoholism.” It’s mainly about litter, and the habits of people who choose to start their unwinding on the drive home but would rather not run afoul of the open-container statute. If you buy a pint of bourbon for the drive home and drink even half of it, you’re legally intoxicated and risk a DUI arrest, not to mention an open-container citation. If you knock back a couple of nips and toss them out the window, you’ll likely get home without an arrest, and if you do get stopped the open containers are out of sight, out of mind on the roadsides.
The guess here is that folks will most likely change their habits at the end of the work day — waiting until they’re safely home before drinking — and the first mile past any given liquor store will no longer be littered with empty nip bottles. Everybody wins.
You’re ignoring the fact that many popular brands, including Fireball, are packaged in 100 ml quarter pint bottles. The equivalent of two 50 ml nips. You didn’t see these much in Island liquor stores, as the 50 ml was the nip size of choice. The next step up was the flask sized 200 ml half pint. A market for a 100 ml container size has now been artificially created, and they are still legal. Watch for them, coming soon to a roadside near you. Also, watch out for the driver that discarded them, as we have now given him the excuse that he needed to drink twice as much behind the wheel.
yes… nicely put…. and i hope that is what happens… change the habit…. alcoholism isnt going to change —- at all…. its always going to be there…. BUT hopefully the litter will change !!!! even for that one mile or two!!! 🙂
So, The Times could not spare a word to recognize the sustained advocacy for years by Paul Doherty who raised this issue with lawmakers, against some big opposition by alcohol lobbyists?
Instead you appear to have spent your time on interviewing alcohol store employees, the very persons who benefited from this scourge.
And Nis is right, it was never about alcoholism but the irresponsible damage to our environment.
Please go back and amend your article to give readers the full story of how this nip ban came about. You will find all roads lead to the door of Paul Doherty.
It’s a sad state of affairs that it’s so bad that you have to stop on the way home from work to toss a few back. Was work that bad or is going home worse? And I’m assuming that people aren’t nipping on the way to work. Man am I lucky that the worst part of my day is reading comments on the MV times. All kidding aside I hope this will lead to people getting the help they need. It’s sounds like an awful lot of people if a ban had to go in effect because of island wide pollution.
How do you know they’re not just straight-up booze cruising? Maybe they’re not on their way anywhere, except into the bag?
Those who are doing that will just start doing it with bigger bottles. Maybe the smart ones will bring along a friend to drink half of each half-pint, so they don’t get SO smashed SO quickly that they… well… smash.
Kevin so true and that too is a sad state of affairs. I guess that is a real possibility too, just drive around slamming shots.
And by the way a very powerful comment you made regarding the protests. Strong words but none truer and was done respectfully and from the heart. Well done.
Now instead of plastic being littered everywhere, we will find broken glass from larger bottles everywhere.
And coffee cups from Black Dog, Mocha Mott’s and Tony’s.
Water bottles.
Put a 60 cent deposit on nips/ next size they may not toss them out the window…. ;BUT if they do plenty of people who need some $$ will PICKING UP some easy cash. (should have typed 50 cent) ANYHOW, any comments?
Thanks a great idea. I think they call that a win win. Nicely done sir!!!
When the bottle bill came out it made a huge dent in litter.
A nickel made the effort worth it.
That 1974 nickel is now worth .8 cents.
I took a a couple of barrels of cans to a refund machine last fall, it took two hours, I got $23.47. I don’t work for less than minimum wage. I stopped dragging cans around, the machines smell bad.
To be effective at eliminating litter returning cans has to net at least minimum wage.
It’s a no brainer.