From the Anchorage Daily News
Minty fresh, blind drunk
Grocery stores lock up their high-alcohol mouthwashes
By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com
(Published: January 13th, 2008)
Police Sgt. Denny Allen reached into a locked wooden cabinet full of mouthwash at the Fairview Carrs grocery store and pulled out a bottle of Listerine.
Original flavor. The hard stuff. Allen checked the alcohol content on the label: 26.9 percent.
A can of Budweiser is 5 percent alcohol.
That's why this Carrs at 13th and Gambell Street now keeps all its alcoholic mouthwash under lock and key behind the camera counter -- people kept buying, stealing and drinking it to get drunk. Now, you can't even buy vanilla extract at the store without asking an employee.
Carrs officials made the change after Allen said he saw empty mouthwash bottles littering homeless camps, particularly over the summer. He talked to Fred Meyer, too, and a company spokeswoman said that chain has stopped selling three varieties of high-alcohol mouthwash at its Muldoon and Midtown stores.
Allen credits the stores with helping to curb mouthwash abuse over the past several months.
"The community is bellying up to the bar, so to speak, to do their part."
CHEAPER THAN LIQUOR
Across the street from the Carrs store is a drop-in center to help people with mental health, addictions and homeless issues. There, David Pash said he volunteers during the day to keep himself off the street.
Pash is 45 and was born in Anchorage. He described himself as homeless and an alcoholic, and said many of his friends are alcoholics too.
He said drinking mouthwash makes people sick, and he turned it down when offered a shot. But people would sometimes buy it because it's cheaper than liquor.
"Especially this summer, you'd see a lot more empty mouthwash bottles laying around on the ground than you would actual liquor bottles," Pash said.
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