Fort Worth’s proposed open container ban will cut down on underage drinking, city says
A proposed city of Fort Worth ordinance to ban drinking on city streets and sidewalks in the West 7th district would have the added benefit of curbing teen drinking, assistant Fort Worth police chief Robert Alldredge told the City Council on Tuesday.
Despite the area’s concentration of drinking establishments, most of the crimes in the West 7th district are committed outside drinking establishments by young adults between the ages of 18 and 20, Alldredge said.
The city is considering an ordinance that would ban open containers in Crockett Row, the Montgomery Plaza shopping center, and an area between University Drive and Carroll Street with West Fifth Street as the northern boundary, according to a map in a city report.
City council member Elizabeth Beck, whose district includes West Seventh, said the ordinance was in response to calls from residents to get a handle on the area’s recent crime spike.
Crime in the district is up 15%, including an 8% increase in public intoxication arrests through the first 10 months of 2022 compared with the same time in 2021, according to the city.
Alldredge noted that young people hanging out at West 7th isn’t normally a problem.
“But what usually happens is as the bars are letting out, confrontations occur,” he said.
Texas law doesn’t ban drinking in public, so Fort Worth police are not able to card people in public without definitive proof they might be underage.
This ordinance will give Fort Worth police the tools they need to crack down on underage drinkers who are causing the most of the problems in the West 7th district, Alldredge said.
Beck clarified that the ordinance would only apply to city streets, sidewalks and alleyways in the area covered by the ordinance.
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said the ordinance seems like a reasonable solution to West 7th’s crime problems, and looked forward to passing it into law.
The council is expected to vote on the ordinance at its Nov. 8 meeting.
This story was originally published November 1, 2022 at 7:15 PM.
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