Four weeks into a 90-day prohibition on malt liquor at six convenience stores in the Whiteaker neighborhood, the police department is claiming victory.
Fewer homeless people, who the ban targets, are passed out in the street in front of stores previously willing to sell intoxicants to the intoxicated. One officer said children have returned to playing in the Washington-Jefferson Park playground in the crime-ridden area, though the homeless presumably still live there.
It’s hard to imagine that children or parents now find the streets to be miraculously safer. It’s harder to see how this ban is anything but a superficial way to address crime, alcoholism or homelessness.
The only accomplishment that will come from denying $1.30-pints of alcohol at this set of stores is a migration of customers to another neighborhood. Already, police have reported a complaint from a citizen who felt the destitute should be “left in the Whiteaker, where they belong.” Attitudes like that reinforce policies like the temporary prohibition that push undesirables from one park to another without addressing their most basic needs.
The ban also limits the availability of a legal product to others who are not engaging in public drunkenness and other crimes. It would be just as easy to enforce state laws and keep store owners from selling malt liquor to people who are already intoxicated.
But the broader problem is the culture of antagonism between the Eugene Police Department and Eugene’s homeless population. The simple fact is homeless people do not trust EPD to keep them safe, and the city is not providing enough services to assist those with mental illnesses including drug and alcohol addiction.
There is also a history of EPD officers abusing the homeless. A 2008 report from the Eugene Civilian Review Board cited complaints of police destructing homeless people’s property, searching their belongings, using excessive force and issuing “blanket” trespassing charges against “anyone the officers deem to be someone (a) property owner might not want on his or her property.” The report concluded this was tantamount to illegalizing homelessness and mental illness.
The city will have made progress when EPD treats the homeless as human beings and there is an honest effort to help those in need instead of sweeping them from one street corner to another. A temporary ban on malt liquor is not a real solution.
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