Santa Monica Named ‘Drunkest City in California’

SANTA MONICA — It’s the end of the road, the last stop on the fabled Route 66. Locals call it the “People’s Republic” for its left-wing politics. Now Santa Monica has a new title: “Drunkest City in California.”

The list of California’s drunkest cities was generated by RoadSnacks.net, using an algorithm that the site described as follows:

• 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

The site explains that “drunk related tweets”covered hashtags like: “#Drunk, #Party, #Beer, #Wine and #Cocktails.”

Santa Monica is not a college town, nor is it particularly disorderly. Yet it is where Los Angeles comes to party in style. With miles and miles of beaches, ample party venues along Ocean Avenue and the Third Street Promenade, and smaller bars and restaurants along the boulevards connecting the city to greater Los Angeles, Santa Monica is the state’s leader in debauchery, with the highest number of bars per capita in the state, according to RoadSnacks.

“It wasn’t even close. It was Santa Monica by a landslide and then everyone else below,” the site comments. It adds that Santa Monica’s large homeless population may have been a factor (a claim the city might well dispute, given that the problem has improved recently).

Santa Barbara, Napa, Pasadena, Sacramento, Newport Beach, Oakland, Livermore, San Mateo, and El Cajon rounded out the top ten drunkest California towns.