VIRGINIA BEACH
Here's to you, Mr. or Mrs. Virginia Beach drinker.
Thanks to your efforts, the city has landed on a Forbes magazine list of hardest-drinking cities in America.
There you are at No. 12, sandwiched between Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore., with these numbers to tell the sodden story.
- Residents who had at least one drink in the past 30 days: 58.1%
- Men who had more than two drinks per day, or women who had more than one drink per day: 4.7%
- Residents who had five or more drinks on one occasion: 18.7%
But while the magazine lists "Virginia Beach" in its rankings, the authors actually are referring to the "metropolitan statistical area," or MSA. That would include not just Virginia Beach, but most of Hampton Roads.
According to the magazine's Web site, the editors studied the 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, then cross-referenced it with data from the Center for Disease Control's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey.
And in case you're interested, Virginia Beach was beat out by the likes of Austin, Texas, at No. 1; Milwaukee; San Francisco; Providence, R.I.; Chicago; and St. Louis.
Cheers.
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Two fisted dude
You might want to put one of those drinks down so you can catch your liver when it shrivels up and you pee it out. Just kidding. I bet you run like 4 miles a day to compensate for all that hard drinking.
Hiccup guy, you totally made me chuckle inside.
Speaking of the Navy, I was in the Navy, and it's so ironic that they are ALWAYS talking about alcohol related incidents and trying to prevent sailors from drinking. We even had safety-standdowns about it where EMT guys would come in and show us horrific pictures of accidents involving alcohol and go through the nitty-gritty of what happens when you arrive at the hospital...not pretty. This past year 4 sailors on the Carl Vinson went to a safety standdown and promptly went out drinking and one of them died,he was my friend and it made me deeply frustrated and angry. One is going to be in jail for a long time and critical condition for the other two or somethin
I need a drink every time I
I need a drink every time I attend a city council meeting.
Always a laugh
The Internet Depressed show up again with the never ending struggle to claim everything sucks. Really shows an amazing naivete about how most of the world lives.
Self Medicating
With lower than national average incomes, higher than average costs of living and housing, a declining local population reported by the US census, 2 Beach Elementary schools considered for closing due to a LACK of young students that age(indicating young families can't afford it here), and one of the highest food taxes in the NATION(Higher than New York)(all this stated in previous Pilot articles)......
NO WONDER PEOPLE ARE DRINKING MORE HERE!
Do us all a favor. Vote in John Moss for Mayor of Va. Beach.
coping
Seems like a perfectly acceptable way to deal with living in VB.
I figured it all out!!!...
...could it be because the fine folks of Va Beach are full of WHINE????
HICCUP!!!!
For those of you who don't know
Any time Forbes or CNNMoney.com or whatever ratings agency rates something like cities, they use MSAs. This is nothing new at all, and it is what most professionals use when looking at demographics. Don't trust what I say? Talk to any bank that has mergers and acquisitions, real estate developers, be they private or public, etc. There is no grand conspiracy here.
Really strange
If this area has such a large drinking problem, then how come we're not hearing more about DUIs resulting in deaths in the Hampton Roads?
Amazing
So the pilot will report that this area is indeed known as Virginia Beach, but only when it is in a negative light. Every other article published they reportedly pretend we all live in the middle of the bay known as hampton roads.
Again, the pilot shows it has a slanted and biased editorial view.
Funny!
We just moved to VB from another HR city (I love VB!). I only drank maybe once or twice in the last 12 years in that other city. Since moving to VB a few month ago, I drink atleast once or twice a week.....it helps me relax when I hear those sonic booms and pay my very high rent bill (the cost of convenience!).
VB...
Whats Meyera O. have to do with alcohol consumption and VB being a tourist trap? Nobody puts a gun to my head when taking a drink.... I'll have a bubble Durbin...
upon further review...
after reading the comments in the marijuana article and then reading the comments in this article, im struggling to figure out why people haven't made this article 10 pages full of comments talking down on "spirits" like they did the herb...this sure is a backwards society we live in....
the state is proud
The state is proud of VABeach. Look at all that tax revenue.
and i'll add
Salute!
More than most
Hey! I'll drink to that!!!
Virginia Beach - The Permanent Vacation
Psssst!
Somebody pass me my
Somebody pass me my scotch.......TODAY!
Where are we?
I thought it was Hampton Roads now? It used to be Tidewater, or Norfolk or Virginia Beach. What about 7 Cities, or America's First Region? I guess Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC Metropolitan Statistical Area is where we offical live?!!? Now I need a drink!
VB Haters...
Did people like phrog even notice that the stats were taken from the region not just VB? So this would include Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, etc. But I can say this: I have lived in other places and have to admit that VB is chock full of the whiniest never happy complainers that I have ever come across. That can drive a same person to drink. Har Har. But I hear high tax this, don't like that, Oberndorff this, noisy that. The services we receive for the taxes we pay are superb compared to any other city in the region and in any other region I have lived in. And when I speak of the whiners it is not the majority of citizens thankfully, it is just a very vocal minority who really need to just move if it is that bad.
Is their a correlation with a previous story?
A few weeks ago, the Pilot printed a story indicating that teenage pregancy was higher in Tidewater than other areas in Virginia. Perhaps the two stories are related.