‘Other ways of over policing.’ Black Sacramentans inordinately cited for public drinking

During the pandemic, laws on the sale of alcoholic to-go beverages relaxed and many flocked to outdoor spaces to share drinks at socially distanced gatherings with friends and family.

Sipping cans of beer at outdoor hangouts became a part of many people’s new normal.

But in the city of Sacramento, drinking in public is still illegal with few exceptions, and it’s Black residents who are disproportionately on the receiving end for citations and warnings.

In 2020, Sacramento Police Department officers handed out 311 citations for drinking in public, according to a Bee analysis of publicly available department records.

Of those given out where the race of the person cited is listed, about 40% were given to Black residents, despite making up about 13% of the city’s population. Race information was unavailable for 25 citations.

The department in 2019 gave slightly fewer citations and warnings, 285 in all, but the racial pattern was almost identical: Among citations and warnings where race data was available, about 40% went to Black residents.

The prior year, the department issued nearly 480 citations and warnings, with Black residents receiving about 35%.

“This is zero percent surprising,” said Meg White, an organizer with the community activist group JUICE Sacramento. “It’s part of the very long laundry list of how Sacramento and many other cities are set up in a way to knock people already at a disadvantage, further down.”

The Sacramento Police Department declined to comment on the policing trend.

The city’s Office of Public Safety Accountability stated it is “responsible to promote trust, excellence, transparency and accountability through independent and impartial oversight of complaints related to public safety employee misconduct” and declined to comment further.

The city of Sacramento’s new inspector general Dwight White said in a text message that it’s “a very interesting and important inquiry” but that his focus is “more citizen complaints against public Safety employees, as well as officer involved shootings and excessive force violations.”

Mario Guerrero, chair of the Sacramento Police Review Commission, said having an open container in public is a clear violation of city laws. But he added that the enforcement of city ordinances is “an issue of fairness.”

“Of course we don’t want people of color to be overpoliced or overstopped,” Guerrero said. “If there is a disproportionate amount of citations in the African American community, we should be asking the question of is it underpolicing other communities?”

He added that creating recommendations to address disparities in policing that are “easily implementable” is a challenge, but added that “I think our policies need to catch up with our new liberties,” he said.

Pedal-powered beer bikes carrying alcohol-sipping partygoers have been driving through midtown for years.

This month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law extending the sale of alcoholic beverages to-go, which was initially approved by the California Department of Alcohol Beverage Control last year to help struggling restaurants.

The disparity in who’s more likely to get ticketed for drinking in public reflects an “obvious disconnect,” White said. “The average people won’t have issues, but if there is some sort of bias and police are more likely to pick on certain folks ... Black folks (may be) particularly victimized.”

As of the end of August, 116 people have been either cited or warned for drinking in public this year, but a plurality of those tickets, about 35%, don’t have race data available. At the least, Black residents received 24 citations or warnings this year.

“There are other folks walking and drinking and biking at a much higher level,” said lead organizer with the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign Faye Wilson Kennedy, “but we live in a society that continuously views people of color as law breakers.”

Wilson Kennedy said that fees associated with being cited for drinking in public — up to $100 for the first violation, $200 for the second within a year, and $500 for additional ones within a year — can severely hinder low-income or homeless residents who are disproportionately people of color.

“We only look at police interactions in terms of traffic stops or people killed, but there are other ways of over policing,” Wilson Kennedy said. “Fines and citations have impact. People get so many fines, you can’t get jobs, your driving record’s impacted. It’s a vicious cycle.”

This story was originally published October 26, 2021 at 5:00 AM.