BILLINGS — Montanans are gearing up for the Fourth of July by stocking up on alcohol, which means liquor stores such as Montana Liquor Inc. are seeing a big boost in sales.
The arrival of the holiday also means it’ll be busy for the Billings Police Department, which sees a higher number of calls for service during this time.
For Montana Liquor manager Dustin Hanson, it’s anything but a normal Monday at his store.
“Compared to a normal Monday, I’d say we probably have doubled the sales already, and we still have six hours or so to go,” said Hanson on Monday.
Hanson said customers have been flooding in since the weekend started.
“I think people are going out for the whole weekend even before, so sales are way busy. We were way busy on Saturday,” Hanson said.
While the sales are great for the family-owned business, the holiday means it’ll be busy for the Billings Police Department.
“You have increased alcohol consumption, groups gathering, that kind of stuff, that always breeds some sort of confrontation or some sort of need to have police present, always,” said Billings police Lt. Matt Lennick.
Billings police will be bringing on extra officers for traffic purposes. Lennick said traffic stops go up by a third on the Fourth of July but surprisingly, only one person was arrested for a DUI last year.
“There’s more traffic contacts on the Fourth. We’re just not pumping out more DUIs,” Lennick said.
They are receiving a significantly higher call volume, however, for one specific reason.
“We do have calls for services coming on top of all the fireworks complaints so the page for calls gets extremely long,” said Lennick.
No matter how you celebrate, safety is always key.
"If you’re going to drink, make sure you have a designated driver or use Uber. That’s a great service to have these days,” Hanson said.
