The ranking methodology includes the number of bars per capita.  (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Is Red Bank the fourth-drunkest town in New Jersey?
An infotainment website based in North Carolina claims it is.
RoadSnacks, which purports to rank places within their states in terms of boredom, snobbishness, danger and other qualities, says Red Bank ranks fourth in terms of inebriation after Atlantic City and Belmar, which tied for first, and Morristown.
The methodology, according to Roadsnacks:
- Number of bars and pubs per capita
- Number of wineries per capita
- Number of liquor stores per capita
- Each city’s drunk related tweets within the last week
- Each city’s divorce rate
Divorces are included, it says, because “we thought why not add in a stereotype? Studies have indicated that when one or both partners in a marriage are alcoholics, that couple is three times more likely to divorce.”
Findings for Red Bank?
Population: 12,194
Divorce rate: 10%
Bars per capita: 9th in NJ
Liquor stores per capita: 12th
Roadsnacks also said its criteria includes “how often people are talking about drinking,” presumably only on Twitter, because it cites the “raw number of tweets that came from within a city’s general area” that include the words, drunk, party, beer, wine or cocktails with hashtags.
Thus, among its sober bits of evidence, Roadsnacks cites this anonymously shared bit of wisdom:
Provocative clickbait, to be sure. But is there anything to it? Does a system of ranking drunkeness merit attention if it includes divorce but not DWI cases?
