Accessible Alcohol: 1 in 3 Californians believe alcohol is too freely available in public venues.

• 41% of respondents believe that alcohol should be banned in venues where children are present.
• Almost 1/3 think alcohol companies market their products too aggressively.
• Infographic showing results by state.

In the past, if you wanted to go out for a drink, you knew where to go - the nearest pub, sports bar or restaurant, for example. But increasingly, alcohol has been creeping in to places we might not always associate with booze. These days it’s sold at movie theaters, which is probably not a great idea given alcohol has a strong diuretic effect; Coffee shops, presumably for those who need something stronger than a caffeine hit; sip ‘n’ shop bars at supermarkets, and even zoos! Intoxicated people and dangerous animals are never a good mix.
But, is all of this making alcohol too freely available and normalizing its consumption a bit too much? Adcare.com conducted a survey of 3,000 adults to find out what they thought and the main discovery was that over 1 in 3 Californians - 37% - think alcohol is far too freely available in public venues.
Illustrative infographic showing results across the country
Nearly half (41%) of respondents believe that alcohol should be banned in venues where children are present, which makes sense, no one wants to be at the zoo or a movie theater when people are behaving in a drunk and disorderly way - it ruins the experience for everyone. And more than half (54%) say that intoxicated people in public places make them nervous. It’s worse when you’re in an enclosed space, like an airplane - recently an LA to NYC Delta flight had to be diverted to Detroit after a passenger got drunk and behaved aggressively.
Twenty-nine percent of respondents say alcohol companies market their products too aggressively, flooding TV, movie theater screens, social media, the internet, billboards, supermarkets and elsewhere with advertisements for booze. Perhaps, as a result, more than 1 in 10 (16%) admit to buying alcohol at the store purely because there was a special offer - even if they had no intention of buying it before getting there.
Disappointingly, more than two-thirds of respondents (68%) think that non-alcoholic beverages, such as mocktails, are too expensive, and are thus dissuaded from purchasing these healthier alternative beverages.