| Summary: | Many of Alaska’s Native communities want alcohol out of their towns. Alcohol plays a part in everything from domestic violence to high rates of accidental death in rural areas. About 100 communities—mostly small villages off the highway system—have restrictions on selling, importing, or possessing alcohol. A few larger rural regional centers—including Barrow, Bethel, and Kotzebue—also have controls on alcohol. Gulkana on the Richardson Highway recently became the first community on a major highway to ban alcohol under state law. Both municipalities and unincorporated places can control the availability of alcohol under Alaska’s local option law. This paper looks at the status of communities under that law and briefly reviews the history of community alcohol control under state and federal law.
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