A financial news and opinion website, 24/7 Wall St., released the latest rankings of the drunkest city in each state, and the Auburn-Opelika area claimed the title for Alabama.
The rankings are based on the percentage of people in each city who are binge or heavy drinkers, which was 17.8 percent, in relation to the same criteria statewide, which was 12.2 percent.
This was reported to the Centers for Disease and Control.
The CDC defines binge drinking as consuming five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women during a single sitting.
Heavy drinking is defined as consuming 15 or more drinks for men and eight or more drinks for women per week.
“More than 26 percent of all driving deaths in the Auburn area are associated with alcohol consumption,” according to the website.
David Dorton, public affairs director for the City of Auburn, said it is hard to comment on the report without knowing the methodology of the study, but he did say he has no reason to think Auburn-Opelika would be different from any other city.
“I really hope it’s not true,” Dorton said. “I don’t know the methodology they used by certainly, in any case, the message of responsible drinking and discouraging drunk driving should be a focus.”
Captain William Mathews with the Auburn Police Division said he could not directly comment on the issue because he did not know where the statistics came from, but he did address drinking in Auburn.
“Binge drinking continues to be a problem in our university community, and we take that very seriously and work with the University to identify those who need assistance and recovery in the area,” Mathews said.
Mathews said the police department works with Student Affairs to help the issue. There were 307 driving under the influence arrests in Auburn in 2014, according to Mathews.
When compared with Tuscaloosa, there is a reasonable difference in the number of DUI arrests.
Pam Lee, certified crime and intelligence analyst with the Tuscaloosa Police Department, said there were 209 DUI arrests in Tuscaloosa in 2014.
Elisabeth Irwin, freshman in architecture, said the report was surprising.
“On Saturday nights of course there are people going out, but there are not people passed out everywhere, so I don’t really see that,” Irwin said. “I feel like the University of Alabama would be way more crazier.”
Ella Sykes, sophomore in history, said she was shocked by the statistic.
“Could that be that Auburn is safer, so they report it more?” Sykes said.
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