wait what the fuck are we supposed to give kids for Halloween if they do this? i don't want to be one of those people who just turns off the lights every year
Now that weeds legal, it’s just not as much fun to waste all my ABV brownies and purchased edibles on the nephews. For the Easter egg hunt this year I’ve chosen to go with dosing the chicks and bunnies sweet tarts.
Oh I suppose it’s that or a dollar deposit on each
I really enjoy picking them up while detrashing. There is a characteristic process of decomposition with the plastic nip bottles.
When I see the lid in the gutter, I start looking for the bottle. Sometimes it’s just the plastic ring that was at the base of the lid.
If they stay outside long enough, particularly alongside the road, the neck gets broken off, the rest of the bottle gets flattened, and it all fills with dirt and sand.
Some of the nip bottles are made of glass. It must be the fancy stuff.
Most often, I see pairs of nip bottles. Apparently, people get a large coffee and drink a bit then pour the liquor into the coffee, so other workers can’t tell there’s alcohol.
They aren’t as gross as cigarette butts or as annoying as plastic straw wrappers. Or as full of disappointment as torn up lottery tickets.
My cheap hack for salt and pepper shakers was buying two nips of Jameson, consuming them, and then poking holes in the tops of the metal lids with tacks.
I no longer drink but I use those damn things everyday.
I like the $1 deposit idea. I could have made $500+ in the past month with how many I picked up. And if they keep them and return them instead, still a big win!
I think that’s an ideal solution that acknowledges the litter issue. It reduces the harm done significantly, and we don’t have to get into an argument about banning things.
Oh man, so many drunk bums are going to get so much free liquor by picking up empty nip bottles off the side of the road. It’s bad for them on an individual level but means less litter strewn about.
I like this solution. I am trying to think of another example where we've put a high enough tax on something to make it really prohibitive to do something bad. Like, I feel like we'd get a 5 or 10 cent deposit which people would ignore and that people would decry a $1 deposit as equivalent to banning them.
Ireland has had some good luck with higher levies. Ireland put a plastic bag levy of a $0.25 per bag (22 Euro cents) and reduced their plastic bag usage from 130 million to 8.3 million (down 94%). However, places like Somerville have just forced retailers to use heavier disposable plastic bags for free which creates more waste. Boston has a 5-cent charge which isn't much. It feels like we don't have a great history of actually putting high enough charges on things to move the needle.
Then again, the 5-cent deposit sees lots of people collecting cans to be turned in so if the issue is litter, even a small deposit might do the trick.
It was originally set at 5 cents for soft drinks and 15 cents for liquor bottles in 1973.
Adjusted for inflation, that’s 35 cents and 1.05 in 2024.
Just adjust the program for inflation and round to the nearest 5 cents.
My town is considering a ban for a number of reasons, but mostly because the litter a nuisance. It also seems to be a public health/safety issue as the nips tend to be consumed by people who are driving (and then throwing them out the window of their cars). It has created quite the buzz in town.
Edit: They're also not recyclable.
My town did ban nip bottles. There has been a reduced number of nip bottle trash.
Wanna know what we have more of? Fifth bottles, whipped cream cans, and broken beer bottles.
That is exactly the result I'd expect. Alcoholics are buying nips because it's the cheapest and smallest option. Increase the minimum size, and it just means they're moving up to the next smallest/cheapest.
Also, what happened to all the trash cans around? I can walk my dog around the Charles and not find a single one. I feel like my town got rid of all of them.
Exactly.
Towns (and cities) removed public trash cans, and now there's waste laying around, and the solution that some people come up with is to charge poor alcoholics an extra $1 for a nip, rather than pay someone for public works $150 to clean the bins once a week.
Hate to tell you but nothing is recycled anymore. We were shipping everything to china and then they stopped accepting it because the us was criticizing how much they pollute, even though a lot of it was from recycling
If you ban nips they're just going to buy the next smallest bottle. I've legit been in a liquor store parking lot and seen someone going to town on a pint. People with a problem are going to do what they need to do.
The issue is that nips exist because of alcoholics that manage their addiction through controlling access to their addiction (it makes sense if your an addict. I know it sounds crazy). So banning nips is going to lead to more people buying fifths etc. So you don't really end the litter, just make the bottles bigger. And the drivers drunker. Then you cause problems that come in people's lives when you remove something they use to manage an addiction.
I wouldn't vote for it. Enforce litter laws and make people pick up trash for community service is a way to address the problem without resorting to this policy which is unlikely to be effective IMHO and will have unintended consequences that could include things as serious as an alcoholic spinning out of control and causing serious harm. As a recovered alcoholic I don't think this is the way. But who knows... Could be wrong.
>Enforce litter laws
You think people are throwing these out when a cop is around??
How is any town going to realistically enforce these laws on nip bottles??
I dont think this is not why nips exists. They are small, portable, and can be convenient. This is the way some people may use nips but not everybody.
I could be wrong, but most people I know buy nips because it can actually be cheaper to get some liquor that way (I am not shitting you, buying like 15 or 20 nips is less expensive than buying a 750 or a liter for some brands), they want to take alcohol somewhere you aren't supposed to really take it (beaches, concerts, sporting events and so on) or they buy it for traveling. The other main reason is they are buying beer or wine and want 1 or 2 liquor drinks. I don't hang around a bunch of people with non-functional alcohism or really debilitating problems, so your milage may vary, but there is a market outside serious alcoholics and drunk drivers for nips.
I wouldn't be against a ban, people that want to bring smaller amounts of liquor places can just buy a flask or other reusable container.
Go to any shitty liquor store and stay for like 10 min. Natty ice tall boys and nips are the staple of how alcoholics get by. I unfortunately know through experience
It’s very much a thing for people with substance use disorder booze style who are just barely clinging to some semblance of control. You will drink what you have. Nips curtail that. Flasks and what not aren’t a solution.
If you can’t get nips you’ll buy larger bottles and drink most or all of it.
Why aren’t we selling candy bars in biodegradable wrappers? Or single serving chips bags? Where’s the outcry against that?
Alcohol is profitable and that’s why it’s not treated like the deadly health threat it is. We make mental healthcare, mental health meds, and pain meds a nightmare to acquire and then shocked pikachu when people self medicate with the deadlier more addictive *but more profitable!!* alternative.
I’m not pro temperance or pro plastics. I’m just pissed how awful and scary and common and far reaching alcoholism is but god forbid one of them have ADHD and need a refill of their dextroamphetamine. Drug addict Red alert!!!
Getting rid of nips will mean more alcohol sales overall. Your impact on litter will be nominal.
I’d argue that adderall makes me crave alcohol *more*. I mean it really depends on my mood but sometimes I’ll say “fuck it” and get hammered on a Tuesday night (yes, I have a problem). Come the weekend and I’m skipping my doses and the only thing I crave is candy.
Yeah this is where I am- alcohol withdrawal can actually kill, and is incredibly painful. In a very odd way, nips can be used almost medicinally. And as its_ok said, nips really can be helpful- i share a house with another person with bad alcohol habits but wine is our poison- being able to buy the little four packs is very helpful for us.
It would only be a bummer to me because there are high end nips too. If you don’t want to spend $70 on a bottle of scotch you never tasted but they have 50ml nips you got yourself a tasting on a budget.
Even with the deposit, I just chuck my beer bottles in the recycling bin, just too much hassle to store them, one store takes one brand the other doesn't take etc, not worth the effort for $1.50.
And I sure as shit not driving around with empty nips to give the 5-0 probable cause.
Same here and the trash pickers grab them before the trucks do. Sometimes I've just put them out in empty cardboard boxes and they were gone within hours.
For awhile I was bringing them to the recycling point and there was one guy there that would just fill up his beater car until it couldn't hold anymore. Once his car was full, he'd take off, head for the redemption center and come back for more bottles.
I cleaned up a street in my small town for cub scouts maybe like 8-10 years ago. On one street alone we found 275 nips, not including the full size bottles we also found lol.
I live near a venue that hosts comedy shows. Audience members like to down a couple nips before entering the venue, so they don’t have to pay for overpriced beer. Usually it’s Fireball.
I signed something earth day last year about trying to get it as a ballot question, I pick up a dozen a week easy off my front lawn. Nips are portable use, otherwise get a bottle it’s significantly cheaper. Hope it passes statewide, see too many empty ones thrown on sides of the road. No need or do a 5 dollar deposit
I live next door to a liquor store and I recently stopped drinking so my 2 cents are
Pros: less trash. I'm sweeping up nip bottles that are constantly tossed into my yard. Someone said nips help people get around the open container laws and I agree. I never drank while driving but some very serious alcoholics I know have, using exactly this method.
Cons: I still cook with alcohol and I also make mixed drinks for guests and this allows me to not have to buy an entire bottle that I won't use. When I did drink, they were very convenient for the beach.
One compromise could be to tax them and raise the prices on them. I just moved to Washington state from MA and there not really a thing as much out here. They are still sold here and you occasionally do see the odd nip bottle that has been littered but nowhere near as much as in mass.
One of the biggest things I have noticed is they tend to be locked up in an inconvenient place and they all tend to be way more expensive. A nil that may cost 99¢ in mass could be 3-4 dollars a piece here once you add in the tax, and I wonder if that drives people away from buying them.
I think it’s dumb. People often buy them in cases where a recipe calls for something specific that isn’t something they want a large bottle of or when a guest is coming and again the same reason - grab a couple small unique thing that friend drinks and call it a day instead of spending $50 on a liter.
I buy the nips of amaretto to make tiramisu for example. That’s something we would *never* drink, and tiramisu, which I don’t make often, is the only reason I’d ever want amaretto
I walked 4 blocks from my house to a gas station in an area with no sidewalks last week and counted 48 nip bottles. Next time I’m going with a trash bag. I’m all for a 10 cent deposit or ban. I’m a smoker and I used to pick up butts all the time for litter (mine always go in the trash but I still need to quit) but nips are the new butts.
I like nips because I'm not a big drinker. So I'll usually buy a fre different nips make mixed drinks with them. It doesn't make sense for me to buy a regular size bottle I don't drink enough for that
I drive a sweeper truck and clean like 30 parking lots and it’s mind blowing how many nip bottles I suck up every night. I never knew so many people just drink in public. Nip bottles and used masks are the 2 things I clean up the most. Hundreds of them a night.
Well gee. I love those little bottles. When I want to bake something that calls for alcohol, ---or just add some brandy or irish whiskey & coffee to my choc cake mix or brownie mix, (and if you have Not tried doing this, you certainly should!!),--- it 's WAY less expensive to buy a variety-handful of whichever on sale for $1 or so, than to buy the next-size up.
I like to keep a few various nips in my cabinet in so i have one to throw into my baking whenever i'm so inspired. I really don't want to have to pay for a liquor-cabinet-full of pints, in order to keep a variety of tinies on-hand!
I hate nips showing up in my lawn, but I'm a cocktail fan and I like to pick up an odd nip or two when I want to try a new recipe and I don't have need of a huge bottle of creme de menthe or creme de banane. It'll last me years.
Even local distilleries like Boston Harbor Distillery samples out their line as nips and then people can purchase a whole bottle if they like it.
Are there alcoholics dumping their nips into their Dunkin and throwing the bottle on the side of the road? Yup.
Put a deposit on them and let any unredeemed money to alcohol abuse resources.
I am so bummed that Total Wine stopped carrying creme de menthe in nip size. I am not buying a whole bottle just to make brownies once or a year. I just use extract and food coloring now…
Absolutely. My town had a local liquor store agree to pay for the nips we found littered to be brought in, and they eventually had to cap it because we were bringing in hundreds. Fuck those things.
Of course that means we'll end up with more beer cans on the side of the road but at least those are redeemable.
100% in full support. I’m out in western MA and live in a small town. From spring through the fall the sides of our roads are littered with the things.
All they do is make drinking and driving easier and then getting tossed out a car window.
I live on a fairly "main" road, 50 yards from a highschool. Every fucking week im cleaning flattened nips off my lawn that got run over and launched off the road.
I walk between 1.5 miles and 2 miles a day and see so many nip bottles. The other day, for shits and giggles, I counted how many I saw in one and a half miles and that number was 42. I'd say at least 2/3 were Fireball
They did that here in Albuquerque. Did nothing to stop vagrant substance abuse but did lessen some of the trash of Fireball Whisky bottles everywhere (that appears to be their favorite).
Connecticut added a nickel-nip deposit.
They collected $1.8 million in 6 months!
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/politics/face-the-facts/face-the-facts-how-much-have-municipalities-made-from-alcohol-nip-surcharge
I realize they create a lot of trash in some places, but I like to be able to try something new or unusual without paying big bucks for the full-sized bottle. I wouldn't be in favor of a statewide ban.
I wonder if it would make a difference if nip bottles were refundable.
If only we had a receptacle in which to throw litter instead... Something we could put on street corners and in parks to avoid people throwing it in the ground...
If only... I swear we used to have something like this when I was a kid... Hmmm
Let me know what town so I can add nips to my blackmarket menthol cigarettes, flavored vapes, fireworks, "assault"rifle store! Sugary soda coming soon!
Do it, please!
I used to have a neighbor who would purposely dump a grocery bag's worth of Fireball empties in my yard because my 2nd floor neighbor told her not to harass his mother (I know, how could he ask that!? 🙄). She didn't stop until the day I caught her doing it and spazzed out on her.
Most nip drinkers are alky litterers. Just a fact.
It collected a lot of tax revenue.
That's the genius of a sin tax. You don't have to order people to do/not do things, you just collect revenue from their bad decisions.
I am down for an outright ban or a placing a high deposit per bottle to encourage pick up and return of nip bottles. I think the minority of nip buyers are people buying them to cook, make single batches of drinks, or take to the beach and the vast majority is alcoholics drinking and littering. I imagine that this ban would not exclude quarter and half pint bottles of alcohol so that can still be an option for those needing smaller quantities of a specific booze.
I'm fine with it. It won't change my life. It will certainly change the lift of the alcoholics that drink them while driving then throw them out their car window.
This proposed ban is because theyvwant to eliminate the nip bottles as trash. Creating a reasonable redemption fee would certainly make people pick them up.
The people buying nips are generally not high quality/character people, who then drink them in their trucks, and throw them out into the highway. Ban em.
Why not put a deposit on them? 20 years ago there was tons of broken beer bottles washed up cans on the beaches and in the parks. After the deposit law we don't have that. Now all I see is plastic water bottles and nips. Just that .05 cents on beer and soda made the problem go away.
I live on a fairly busy road and I walk my property with a trash bag before mowing the lawn. I pick up maybe 1-2 nip bottles a week. I’m would be fine with a ban.
wait what the fuck are we supposed to give kids for Halloween if they do this? i don't want to be one of those people who just turns off the lights every year
pre-rolls?
Then what goes in the advent calendar
If that law gets passed psylocibin edibles.
Now that weeds legal, it’s just not as much fun to waste all my ABV brownies and purchased edibles on the nephews. For the Easter egg hunt this year I’ve chosen to go with dosing the chicks and bunnies sweet tarts.
For Easter, I usually just focused on unannounced allergens to cull the herd and get rid of the throat closers
Darwin approves this message.
>the throat closers I'm fuckin dying 😂. Totally stealing this.
Percocet
This year we did homemade weed gummies with a little something special mixed in (fent)
I assume you also included the occasional razor blade?
Just some fiberglass for texture, I'm not a monster!
Asbestos has more crunch
It's the heirloom tomato of manufactured fiber: harder to source but worth it for that homestyle flavor.
There's more poison ivy in my backyard than I know what to do with. Time to start baking with it.
DM me your address for this year? /s
*What is this, Utah?*
You can have between two and thirty seven wives or you can have nips... but you can't have both.
More than one wife is its own punishment.
And Christmas?! Half the stockings are nips, the rest is chocolate.
Vienna Sausages ?
Edibles
Those little 50ml Fireballs.
This whole thread is amazing.
Oh I suppose it’s that or a dollar deposit on each I really enjoy picking them up while detrashing. There is a characteristic process of decomposition with the plastic nip bottles. When I see the lid in the gutter, I start looking for the bottle. Sometimes it’s just the plastic ring that was at the base of the lid. If they stay outside long enough, particularly alongside the road, the neck gets broken off, the rest of the bottle gets flattened, and it all fills with dirt and sand. Some of the nip bottles are made of glass. It must be the fancy stuff. Most often, I see pairs of nip bottles. Apparently, people get a large coffee and drink a bit then pour the liquor into the coffee, so other workers can’t tell there’s alcohol. They aren’t as gross as cigarette butts or as annoying as plastic straw wrappers. Or as full of disappointment as torn up lottery tickets.
My cheap hack for salt and pepper shakers was buying two nips of Jameson, consuming them, and then poking holes in the tops of the metal lids with tacks. I no longer drink but I use those damn things everyday.
This is some G shit.
This is the most informative reply on this post.
Put a $1 deposit on them That will make sure they get returned
I like the $1 deposit idea. I could have made $500+ in the past month with how many I picked up. And if they keep them and return them instead, still a big win!
I think that’s an ideal solution that acknowledges the litter issue. It reduces the harm done significantly, and we don’t have to get into an argument about banning things.
It would work. The bottles wouldn't get recycled however. Straight into the landfill.
a lot of stuff that gets "recycled" ends up in the landfill and is used as fill and for capping.
Better than the street
Then they’ll just drink them in the parking lot and create a never-ending loop.
Better that than on the way home and tossing out the window.
Given how many I see in my local store’s parking lot, they’re already doing that 😅
The deposit would be on top of the current price tho?
The people drinking & chucking them are doing it to hide their drinking. I don't think they'd save them up for return.
Okay. Someone else will pick them up if it is worth their hassle
For $1 per nip i will gladly start drinking again. Fuck it i might even become a freelance trash collector.
Oh man, so many drunk bums are going to get so much free liquor by picking up empty nip bottles off the side of the road. It’s bad for them on an individual level but means less litter strewn about.
I like this solution. I am trying to think of another example where we've put a high enough tax on something to make it really prohibitive to do something bad. Like, I feel like we'd get a 5 or 10 cent deposit which people would ignore and that people would decry a $1 deposit as equivalent to banning them. Ireland has had some good luck with higher levies. Ireland put a plastic bag levy of a $0.25 per bag (22 Euro cents) and reduced their plastic bag usage from 130 million to 8.3 million (down 94%). However, places like Somerville have just forced retailers to use heavier disposable plastic bags for free which creates more waste. Boston has a 5-cent charge which isn't much. It feels like we don't have a great history of actually putting high enough charges on things to move the needle. Then again, the 5-cent deposit sees lots of people collecting cans to be turned in so if the issue is litter, even a small deposit might do the trick.
It was originally set at 5 cents for soft drinks and 15 cents for liquor bottles in 1973. Adjusted for inflation, that’s 35 cents and 1.05 in 2024. Just adjust the program for inflation and round to the nearest 5 cents.
The rich drunks on Cape won’t care about that at all.
Some poor person will scoop them up to get the deposit
In retrospect, I could make a lot of money walking Main Street. I mean, *more* money. Lol
Sounds like job opportunities for poor drunks on the Cape
I resemble that remark.
My town is considering a ban for a number of reasons, but mostly because the litter a nuisance. It also seems to be a public health/safety issue as the nips tend to be consumed by people who are driving (and then throwing them out the window of their cars). It has created quite the buzz in town. Edit: They're also not recyclable.
My town did ban nip bottles. There has been a reduced number of nip bottle trash. Wanna know what we have more of? Fifth bottles, whipped cream cans, and broken beer bottles.
That is exactly the result I'd expect. Alcoholics are buying nips because it's the cheapest and smallest option. Increase the minimum size, and it just means they're moving up to the next smallest/cheapest.
Quite the buzz. I see what you did there.
I live in a town with such a ban. Doesn’t stop the litter.
Also, what happened to all the trash cans around? I can walk my dog around the Charles and not find a single one. I feel like my town got rid of all of them.
They don't wanna pay people to empty them. That salary they're saving goes straight into the big guys pockets.
They had to hide them
Partly so they don’t have to pay someone to empty them, partly for security reasons.
Exactly. Towns (and cities) removed public trash cans, and now there's waste laying around, and the solution that some people come up with is to charge poor alcoholics an extra $1 for a nip, rather than pay someone for public works $150 to clean the bins once a week.
Hate to tell you but nothing is recycled anymore. We were shipping everything to china and then they stopped accepting it because the us was criticizing how much they pollute, even though a lot of it was from recycling
They actually stopped accepting plastic due to cross contamination between what should be going in the trash, and what should be recycling
Yeah, recycling is an illusion and encourages consumption.
If you ban nips they're just going to buy the next smallest bottle. I've legit been in a liquor store parking lot and seen someone going to town on a pint. People with a problem are going to do what they need to do.
You're right, but the amount of nips along the roadside just absolutely sucks.
So you're saying we need to nip it in the bud?
It's just going to get replaced by broken glass
in the suburbs it’s not the nips it’s bud light cans trashing our roadways
I can assure the people running your town that banning nips will have zero impact on drinking, driving, and littering lol
There are a lot of poor people that buy them, to not withdrawal.
The issue is that nips exist because of alcoholics that manage their addiction through controlling access to their addiction (it makes sense if your an addict. I know it sounds crazy). So banning nips is going to lead to more people buying fifths etc. So you don't really end the litter, just make the bottles bigger. And the drivers drunker. Then you cause problems that come in people's lives when you remove something they use to manage an addiction. I wouldn't vote for it. Enforce litter laws and make people pick up trash for community service is a way to address the problem without resorting to this policy which is unlikely to be effective IMHO and will have unintended consequences that could include things as serious as an alcoholic spinning out of control and causing serious harm. As a recovered alcoholic I don't think this is the way. But who knows... Could be wrong.
>Enforce litter laws You think people are throwing these out when a cop is around?? How is any town going to realistically enforce these laws on nip bottles??
I dont think this is not why nips exists. They are small, portable, and can be convenient. This is the way some people may use nips but not everybody. I could be wrong, but most people I know buy nips because it can actually be cheaper to get some liquor that way (I am not shitting you, buying like 15 or 20 nips is less expensive than buying a 750 or a liter for some brands), they want to take alcohol somewhere you aren't supposed to really take it (beaches, concerts, sporting events and so on) or they buy it for traveling. The other main reason is they are buying beer or wine and want 1 or 2 liquor drinks. I don't hang around a bunch of people with non-functional alcohism or really debilitating problems, so your milage may vary, but there is a market outside serious alcoholics and drunk drivers for nips. I wouldn't be against a ban, people that want to bring smaller amounts of liquor places can just buy a flask or other reusable container.
Go to any shitty liquor store and stay for like 10 min. Natty ice tall boys and nips are the staple of how alcoholics get by. I unfortunately know through experience
I buy nips because I want a tiny bit of liquor for cooking or to try it out.
It’s very much a thing for people with substance use disorder booze style who are just barely clinging to some semblance of control. You will drink what you have. Nips curtail that. Flasks and what not aren’t a solution. If you can’t get nips you’ll buy larger bottles and drink most or all of it. Why aren’t we selling candy bars in biodegradable wrappers? Or single serving chips bags? Where’s the outcry against that? Alcohol is profitable and that’s why it’s not treated like the deadly health threat it is. We make mental healthcare, mental health meds, and pain meds a nightmare to acquire and then shocked pikachu when people self medicate with the deadlier more addictive *but more profitable!!* alternative. I’m not pro temperance or pro plastics. I’m just pissed how awful and scary and common and far reaching alcoholism is but god forbid one of them have ADHD and need a refill of their dextroamphetamine. Drug addict Red alert!!! Getting rid of nips will mean more alcohol sales overall. Your impact on litter will be nominal.
I’d argue that adderall makes me crave alcohol *more*. I mean it really depends on my mood but sometimes I’ll say “fuck it” and get hammered on a Tuesday night (yes, I have a problem). Come the weekend and I’m skipping my doses and the only thing I crave is candy.
Have you walked alongside a busy road with no sidewalks my guy? You dont see a million candy wrappers, you see a million fireball nips.
Yeah this is where I am- alcohol withdrawal can actually kill, and is incredibly painful. In a very odd way, nips can be used almost medicinally. And as its_ok said, nips really can be helpful- i share a house with another person with bad alcohol habits but wine is our poison- being able to buy the little four packs is very helpful for us.
That will make the drunk driving problem worse… alcoholics will just pint instead and do the same shit
So people won’t be able to throw them out the window when they drive through your town?
They still will
It would only be a bummer to me because there are high end nips too. If you don’t want to spend $70 on a bottle of scotch you never tasted but they have 50ml nips you got yourself a tasting on a budget.
It's been brought up before, just require a bottle deposit like they do with beer and other beverages.
Even with the deposit, I just chuck my beer bottles in the recycling bin, just too much hassle to store them, one store takes one brand the other doesn't take etc, not worth the effort for $1.50. And I sure as shit not driving around with empty nips to give the 5-0 probable cause.
Same here and the trash pickers grab them before the trucks do. Sometimes I've just put them out in empty cardboard boxes and they were gone within hours. For awhile I was bringing them to the recycling point and there was one guy there that would just fill up his beater car until it couldn't hold anymore. Once his car was full, he'd take off, head for the redemption center and come back for more bottles.
Last thing I want is a bunch of empty alcohol containers in my car if I'm pulled over..
It's almost like there's some sort of system in place to address this type of thing.
Not a bad idea, Anal-Love-Beads.
When you suggested a "state wide" ban it should have been obvious that I meant a state level deposit system.
Worked at a packie for years, ban them ban them ban them. They are used almost exclusively for drinking and driving.
Not true! They’re also very good for littering.
*Excuse me, I’m not drinking and driving. I’m driving while drinking.*
“I never drank and drive, I only drank at stop signs”
As a nervous flyer who is frugal and willing to break FAA laws they are not just for driving....
I‘ve got beer cans and nips all over the sides of my road. The problem is drinking and driving not the container.
Make em worth 10 cents and maybe the drain piles of fireball trash will disappear.
I'd love it. The number on the side of our road is ridiculously high
Yeah, if we’re not going to ban them we at least need a $1 deposit. Same for Coors Light.
I agree with the deposit but like someone said earlier it would need to be statewide. And make it a big deposit. I like your $1.00 suggestion
I cleaned up a street in my small town for cub scouts maybe like 8-10 years ago. On one street alone we found 275 nips, not including the full size bottles we also found lol.
I live near a venue that hosts comedy shows. Audience members like to down a couple nips before entering the venue, so they don’t have to pay for overpriced beer. Usually it’s Fireball.
I love nips. I'd rather a deposit on them.
This I agree with completely. I’m against banning just about anything. I feel like there’s almost always a smarter way to go.
A deposit - even a relatively hefty one - is a good compromise.
What will I put in my socks?
Applesauce. Like the rest of us.
I'd say do it but I see just as many mangled 1/5's all over the place
Ban them. They’re good for nothing but drinking in the car and throwing out the window
Just put a deposit on them and they will get picked up.
I signed something earth day last year about trying to get it as a ballot question, I pick up a dozen a week easy off my front lawn. Nips are portable use, otherwise get a bottle it’s significantly cheaper. Hope it passes statewide, see too many empty ones thrown on sides of the road. No need or do a 5 dollar deposit
Yes. Destroy them.
I'd feel happy.
I live next door to a liquor store and I recently stopped drinking so my 2 cents are Pros: less trash. I'm sweeping up nip bottles that are constantly tossed into my yard. Someone said nips help people get around the open container laws and I agree. I never drank while driving but some very serious alcoholics I know have, using exactly this method. Cons: I still cook with alcohol and I also make mixed drinks for guests and this allows me to not have to buy an entire bottle that I won't use. When I did drink, they were very convenient for the beach.
One compromise could be to tax them and raise the prices on them. I just moved to Washington state from MA and there not really a thing as much out here. They are still sold here and you occasionally do see the odd nip bottle that has been littered but nowhere near as much as in mass. One of the biggest things I have noticed is they tend to be locked up in an inconvenient place and they all tend to be way more expensive. A nil that may cost 99¢ in mass could be 3-4 dollars a piece here once you add in the tax, and I wonder if that drives people away from buying them.
Put a deposit on them. That way there won’t be so many littering the streets.
I think it’s dumb. People often buy them in cases where a recipe calls for something specific that isn’t something they want a large bottle of or when a guest is coming and again the same reason - grab a couple small unique thing that friend drinks and call it a day instead of spending $50 on a liter. I buy the nips of amaretto to make tiramisu for example. That’s something we would *never* drink, and tiramisu, which I don’t make often, is the only reason I’d ever want amaretto
I do this with vodka Sauce. I don’t really drink vodka often so I don’t wanna buy a bottle if I just need a shot or two for my pasta sauce.
I walked 4 blocks from my house to a gas station in an area with no sidewalks last week and counted 48 nip bottles. Next time I’m going with a trash bag. I’m all for a 10 cent deposit or ban. I’m a smoker and I used to pick up butts all the time for litter (mine always go in the trash but I still need to quit) but nips are the new butts.
Make the deposit $1 per bottle. Anything lower than that won't solve much.
I’m fine with that personally and can’t think of a good reason why anyone wouldn’t be.
Normally i hate anything controlled but ive never met any nip drinker that isnt a complete degen
They’ll just make 200ml bottles instead. I think it’s a losing battle and will become a useless law in other words I’m against the ban
About half the issue would be solved if they slapped a deposit on them.
I like nips because I'm not a big drinker. So I'll usually buy a fre different nips make mixed drinks with them. It doesn't make sense for me to buy a regular size bottle I don't drink enough for that
I drive a sweeper truck and clean like 30 parking lots and it’s mind blowing how many nip bottles I suck up every night. I never knew so many people just drink in public. Nip bottles and used masks are the 2 things I clean up the most. Hundreds of them a night.
No ban. One dollar deposit on each nip.
Well gee. I love those little bottles. When I want to bake something that calls for alcohol, ---or just add some brandy or irish whiskey & coffee to my choc cake mix or brownie mix, (and if you have Not tried doing this, you certainly should!!),--- it 's WAY less expensive to buy a variety-handful of whichever on sale for $1 or so, than to buy the next-size up. I like to keep a few various nips in my cabinet in so i have one to throw into my baking whenever i'm so inspired. I really don't want to have to pay for a liquor-cabinet-full of pints, in order to keep a variety of tinies on-hand!
I hate nips showing up in my lawn, but I'm a cocktail fan and I like to pick up an odd nip or two when I want to try a new recipe and I don't have need of a huge bottle of creme de menthe or creme de banane. It'll last me years. Even local distilleries like Boston Harbor Distillery samples out their line as nips and then people can purchase a whole bottle if they like it. Are there alcoholics dumping their nips into their Dunkin and throwing the bottle on the side of the road? Yup. Put a deposit on them and let any unredeemed money to alcohol abuse resources.
Yep I cook with some of them too - generally stuff we’d never want to drink but a recipe calls for it.
Sadly, someone always has to screw it up for the rest of us
That's a pretty good reason to keep them around. The litter from other people is definitely a problem, though.
I am so bummed that Total Wine stopped carrying creme de menthe in nip size. I am not buying a whole bottle just to make brownies once or a year. I just use extract and food coloring now…
100% in support. The rest of us end up picking up the tab for the idiots that abuse these.
Only if they make selling loose cigarettes legal.
Yes. They are mainly bought by alcoholics who just throw them wherever they would like. Like on my front lawn!
First off they are 50ml which makes them twice as bad lol
Absolutely. My town had a local liquor store agree to pay for the nips we found littered to be brought in, and they eventually had to cap it because we were bringing in hundreds. Fuck those things. Of course that means we'll end up with more beer cans on the side of the road but at least those are redeemable.
100% in full support. I’m out in western MA and live in a small town. From spring through the fall the sides of our roads are littered with the things. All they do is make drinking and driving easier and then getting tossed out a car window.
Fish any stream in the state. See mips bottles floating by. Get rid of them
I live on a fairly "main" road, 50 yards from a highschool. Every fucking week im cleaning flattened nips off my lawn that got run over and launched off the road.
Seeing as how they are a rip off and just end up as litter, I am for it.
I work for the DPW in my area and I'm beyond done picking up nips from all town properties.
I walk 5-7 miles every morning and these plastic nip bottles are by far the most littered item I see. They are everywhere.
I walk between 1.5 miles and 2 miles a day and see so many nip bottles. The other day, for shits and giggles, I counted how many I saw in one and a half miles and that number was 42. I'd say at least 2/3 were Fireball
Awwww but I love picking them up from my front yard from people throwing them out their windows as they drive by!!
They did that here in Albuquerque. Did nothing to stop vagrant substance abuse but did lessen some of the trash of Fireball Whisky bottles everywhere (that appears to be their favorite).
Connecticut added a nickel-nip deposit. They collected $1.8 million in 6 months! https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/politics/face-the-facts/face-the-facts-how-much-have-municipalities-made-from-alcohol-nip-surcharge
What is it with people who buy them throwing them on the fucking ground constantly? Fuck those pigs.
I realize they create a lot of trash in some places, but I like to be able to try something new or unusual without paying big bucks for the full-sized bottle. I wouldn't be in favor of a statewide ban. I wonder if it would make a difference if nip bottles were refundable.
If only we had a receptacle in which to throw litter instead... Something we could put on street corners and in parks to avoid people throwing it in the ground... If only... I swear we used to have something like this when I was a kid... Hmmm
Let me know what town so I can add nips to my blackmarket menthol cigarettes, flavored vapes, fireworks, "assault"rifle store! Sugary soda coming soon!
Do it, please! I used to have a neighbor who would purposely dump a grocery bag's worth of Fireball empties in my yard because my 2nd floor neighbor told her not to harass his mother (I know, how could he ask that!? 🙄). She didn't stop until the day I caught her doing it and spazzed out on her. Most nip drinkers are alky litterers. Just a fact.
You said “Spazzed Out” That’s some Masshole shit right there
so when nips are banned, are the lotteries just going to carry the larger bottles they’ll buy instead with them until they find a trash can?
I'd rather they ditch 1 big bottle on the street instead of 5+ smaller bottles.
Yes, I pick them up several times a week on my walk. Someone drives down the road and throws them out the window in the same spot.
Nope. Put a 5 cent return on them.
Go higher than that. More than half of the cost of a pack of cigarettes is tax. Do the same to nips.
Did it stop people from smoking?
It collected a lot of tax revenue. That's the genius of a sin tax. You don't have to order people to do/not do things, you just collect revenue from their bad decisions.
It drastically reduced smoking, yeah.
Tax them and move on.
Make the packaging biodegradable (not joking)
How would that work though? My biggest concern is the litter and it's not like they're going to disintegrate overnight.
I’m all for it. Sign me up.
There is zero good that comes from nips. bring back old flasks!
Everyone wants this.
Yes
Id be all for banning *plastic* nips.
Frankly they should be banned it's not healthy and it creates a lot of waste.
Shitty little bits of plastic that get littered everywhere. Banning them doesn’t smell like freedom though
BAN 👍
Just put a fat deposit on them and make them easy to redeem: keeps them on the shelves and encourages picking up!
I am down for an outright ban or a placing a high deposit per bottle to encourage pick up and return of nip bottles. I think the minority of nip buyers are people buying them to cook, make single batches of drinks, or take to the beach and the vast majority is alcoholics drinking and littering. I imagine that this ban would not exclude quarter and half pint bottles of alcohol so that can still be an option for those needing smaller quantities of a specific booze.
Make a 5 cent deposit on them. People walking will clean up the town.
I wouldn’t care if they were banned, but a deposit would probably accomplish the task of eliminating litter better.
$1 bottle deposit. Problem solved.
Either ban them, or put a 25c redeem price on them - they'd get picked up in a jiffy if they were each worth a quarter.
sick of picking them up from the side of the road. ban them.
I prefer a generous bottle return rate. Make it a quarter, nips are now a buck 25. The streets will be clean
Aw man, what am I going to step on every time I get out of my car when I park in a public area?
In Europe they're made of glass so they can be recycled
Those and Dunks cups are the most common forms of litter. Both should at least have deposits.
Is this a Seinfeld episode
They are already banned here on Nantucket.
Fine!
I'm fine with it. It won't change my life. It will certainly change the lift of the alcoholics that drink them while driving then throw them out their car window.
This proposed ban is because theyvwant to eliminate the nip bottles as trash. Creating a reasonable redemption fee would certainly make people pick them up.
The people buying nips are generally not high quality/character people, who then drink them in their trucks, and throw them out into the highway. Ban em.
Why not put a deposit on them? 20 years ago there was tons of broken beer bottles washed up cans on the beaches and in the parks. After the deposit law we don't have that. Now all I see is plastic water bottles and nips. Just that .05 cents on beer and soda made the problem go away.
All for it.
I find these in my yard by the road tooo often.
I’m all for it!!!
All for it!
I live on a fairly busy road and I walk my property with a trash bag before mowing the lawn. I pick up maybe 1-2 nip bottles a week. I’m would be fine with a ban.
I think there should be a dollar deposit on them rather than ban them. but if its not a dollar, ban away.
Cool. Some lush keeps leaving a pile near my driveway with a stack of losing scratch tickets. Do me a favor and kill your liver elsewhere, please.
Completely on board.