City officials say its drinking ordinance has led to an uptick of gun violence. Has it?

Since the pandemic, Gainesville residents have been able to stroll around their neighborhoods in the evening with a beer, walk from bar to bar with a cocktail in hand and picnic in grassy areas with a bottle of wine.

That may soon come to an end after a split City Commission decided to revert back to its old law that banned publicly drinking alcohol outside of establishments.

Some city leaders, including Mayor Harvey Ward and Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut, have cited local gun violence as their prime reason for supporting a ban on open containers.

A closer look at the issue, however, shows no one in city government or at the Gainesville Police Department has any definitive data to support a correlation between open container laws leading to an uptick in gun violence locally. In fact, throughout The Sun's month-long inquiry to seek an explanation on the issue, no one in leadership has provided specific examples of a time when a law-abiding citizen used Gainesville's lax drinking ordinance before shooting someone.

Though there is data to support that alcohol use leads to more gun crimes, city leaders aren't looking to ban alcohol or restrict any of the bars that let out hundreds of drunk college students around 2 a.m. to flood the streets.

Gun violence in Gainesville

When asked directly whether GPD collects any data on drinking and gun violence, GPD Police Chief Lonnie Scott said that after researching the issue he believed 80% of homicide victims have been drinking at the time of their death.

“Do a little Google,” he said.

The statistic, however, is nationwide, rather than specific to Gainesville, and false.

The figure Scott cites is closer to 40% and appears to absolve the perpetrator from any wrongdoing, suggesting that innocent people are gunned down simply for having a few drinks.

In the past, GPD has arrested people for public drinking. But allowing officers the freedom to give people civil citations for violating open container laws is easier than having to call multiple officers together to break up large crowds of people who have been drinking, Scott said.

Despite the lack of data, Scott said he still supports the ban on open containers.

“I can't sit here and say without any deeper analysis that there’s a direct correlation between gun violence and alcohol,” he said. “But, anecdotally, I would make that assumption.”

He said that he would have to check back with his staff before providing any further statistics, and has since been unresponsive to multiple follow-up attempts.

More: City Commission moves to again ban open containers 24/7 in most of Gainesville

Elected city leaders lean on GPD

The City Commission declared a gun violence crisis in Gainesville in February.

Recent GPD data from July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2023 − a timeline that begins shortly after Scott was sworn in as chief − shows there have been seven homicides, a decrease of one compared to the year prior. Excluding homicides, however, data also shows an uptick of 147 shootings compared to 123 from the year prior. The increase and bulk of the shootings are in east Gainesville's District 1.

Ward, who was the swing vote to ban public drinking, told The Sun in August that gun violence was the only reason he supported it. When asked how he knows there is a correlation between the two issues, he said he didn't know and felt obligated to listen to what law enforcement officials have told him.

“I don't know it,” Ward said. “It’s really not a data question.”

“Correlation is not causation and I'm absolutely aware that our gun violence rates are on exactly the same curve as the national gun violence rates,” he added. “But if our law enforcement folks, locally, tell me that this is a problem that they can help solve with this additional tool, then I want to give them that tool.”

Others don't see it that way.

Commissioner Reina Saco, who initially brought up the issue in hopes of scaling back the hours to help GPD with its staffing concerns, voted against the 24-hour ban. At the time, GPD shared stories about large gatherings happening in city garages and streets, which has since been largely resolved by limiting the hours of entry and restricting alcohol consumption on site.

Saco said she also hasn’t seen any data that supports a connection between loose open container laws and gun violence.

“We don't do a breathalyzer on someone every time there's a shooting," she said. "We don't take their blood alcohol content. At least to me, no Gainesville-specific, GPD-specific data has been presented that shows when people are drinking we have more crime.”

When multiple people from The Sun set out several times to find people using the open container rules to their benefit, the mission proved difficult. Most were enjoying themselves at restaurants, which was already allowed. Few, if any, appeared to be walking around carelessly or acting in a reckless manner, as some suggest.

Rejected recommendation

City staff’s original recommendation to the commission on open container policy was to scale back the hours, restricting drinking in city streets from 11:30 p.m. to 8 a.m. Monday through Saturday. On Sunday, the ban would have been 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.

The current ordinance only bans open containers from 2:30 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Votes to follow staff recommendation, twice led by Saco, failed both times.

While no Gainesville-specific data has been presented on the topic, Commissioner Ed Book, who holds dual office positions as a city commissioner and as police chief for Santa Fe College, compiled a resource list with information about national gun violence and alcohol trends to share with other commissioners.

The nine resources touch on the relationship between the two issues nationwide. Most of the articles encourage governments to consider other policies like restricting firearms and reducing liquor store density. One resource that suggests “increasing levels of alcohol-related enforcement,” via a tough-on-crime approach, comes from a corporately-funded, conservative policy group.

Only two, including an “informational web guide” on treating addiction, advise strict open container laws as a way to curb violence.

Book declined to interview with The Sun.

Representatives from Southern Legal Counsel, National Homelessness Law Center and ACLU of Florida sent a letter to commissioners in 2021, when they first voted to relax open container laws, asking them to consider how it would impact poor and homeless people, adding that they support a permanent repeal of ordinances banning open containers. GPD's own data from 2017 and 2021 that roughly 40% of recorded violations of open container laws locally were committed by unhoused individuals.

“The disproportionate impact of open container ordinances on houseless individuals is attributable to their absence of choice,” the letter reads. “Homelessness is a systemic public health crisis and criminalization of this nature moves to further exacerbate the problem, taking us further from the solution.”

Entertainment districts

One of the biggest reasons some commissioners voted against a total ban on open containers is the impact it could have on local bars and restaurants that have shifted to have more outdoor seating and events since the pandemic. Areas in front of downtown storefronts, like Loosey’s and the How Bazar, have become hot spots for orderly weekend drinking and street markets.

City Commissioner Bryan Eastman, who also voted against the ban, said he hasn't seen any data to support the claim of increased gun violence from open containers and has expressed how it benefits communities.

As a compromise, he floated the idea of creating "entertainment districts" where people can drink freely until 2 a.m. The vote passed 6-1.

The city will have a special general policy committee meeting on Oct. 26 to discuss the idea further. Select parts of town, such as downtown or near Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, could be considered as exceptions for the city's drinking ban that would take effect Jan. 1.

More: City Commission votes to ban open containers 24/7, planning new 'entertainment districts'

“I would have preferred more flexibility for drinking in responsible ways outside of downtown and the Grove Street area,” Eastman said. “But I think this gets us 90% to where we want to go, even though I would have preferred a different way of getting there.”

Scott said enforcing in some parts of the city and not others would be a challenge, but one his staff can manage if districts are small enough.

Saco, however, has said she doesn’t understand some commissioners' logic to support a ban but then support special districts. And if the goal is to curb gun violence, data already shows that more of the shootings are concentrated near downtown areas.

“If alcohol was so bad, that it guarantees violence, why allow it at all?” she said.

'Winners and losers'

Of course, the drawing of these districts means the commission will have to decide what businesses can have open containers around them, while others will have to ask customers to throw away drinks at the door.

“It kind of makes us choose the winners and the losers, who gets to have the ability to use more of the space in front of their buildings in order to expand out when needed. That makes me uncomfortable," Eastman said. "I kind of like to see this happen organically."

Commissioners have heard from members of the community other than businesses, too, the vast majority of whom don't seem to agree with the direction.

At the city’s Gun Violence Prevention Summit in August, there was a poll taken that asked attendees what they believe contributes to gun violence in the community. From the 10 options provided, of which attendees could choose multiple, the fewest number of people chose “open container” — only five. Most people, 29 total, choose poverty and economic inequality as the top contributing factors.

“We don't have data to back this up,” Saco said. “We have a puritanical fear of alcohol.”

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: No city data shows connection between open containers and gun violence