U.S. News and World Reports has unleashed a top ten list of America's drunkest cities. Florida dominates the list with whopping three cities on the top ten. Surely, Miami, America's nightlife capital, would make the list? Or perhaps Fort Liquordale or Ernest Hemingway's favorite booze-drenched isle of Key West?
Nope. Apparently the places doing the most drinking are boring ol' towns better known for their retirement communities then their bars.
The Palm Bay-Melbourne area comes in second in the country. 9.1 percent of the population reportedly "drinks heavily" there. Oddly, U.S. News doesn't cite the source of their numbers, but only Reno-Nevada beat out the Melbourne area.
Interestingly, 19.90 percent of residents in the area are 65 or older. Only 12.8 percent of the total U.S. population and 17.8 percent of the total Florida population is 65 or older.
Naples-Marco Island comes in seventh on the list with 8.5 percent of the population drinking heavily. An astounding 24.50 percent of people in Collier County are 65 or older.
Finally Cape Coral comes in 9th on the list with a heavy drinking rate of 8.1 percent. 19.6 percent of the population is 65 or older.
Only 13.3 percent of people in Miami-Dade are 65 or older, in case you're wondering.
We're not saying necessarily that old people love to get drunk. Perhaps a more likely explanation: the younger populations in those cities, forced to confront the specter of death and aging on a daily basis, and living in a town where there's not much going on in the ways of youth culture, have resigned themselves to a state of perpetual drunkenness.
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