Just How Drunk is Walpole?

Photo Credit: Shawsheen Village Liquors, Andover, MA. Google Maps

By ADAM SWIFT (Patch Staff)

Walpole ranked 4th drunkest city in the state, according to a recent online survey.

Really??!!

Well, according to RoadSnacks, who recently ranked the drunkest cities in Massachusetts, Walpole ranked 4th on the list.

Of course, RoadSnacks.net is a website that seems to revel in the negative, regularly ranking towns and cities as the worst places to live, the most redneck, and the most dangerous, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it has turned its attention to where people like to drink the most.

After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, RoadSnacks came up with this list as The Wicked Drunkest Cities in Massachusetts:

1. Plymouth
2. Scituate
3. Salem
4. Walpole
5. Adams
6. West Yarmouth
7. West Bridgewater
8. Andover
9. Hudson
10. Newburyport

What kind of scientific methods did RoadSnacks use to determine which cities and towns drink the most?

By the number of available places to buy booze, and by how often people are talking about drinking, according to the article’s author, plus, just for fun, the method included a look at each community’s divorce rate.

RoadSnacks on Walpole:

“Here’s the thing about Walpole – you clearly are drinkers since you have a high number of bars and liquor stores in the area. But your divorce rate is only about average. At 10%, that’s somewhere in the middle for the state.

And, as a household, Walpole residents bring in about 100k a year. Are you sticking together for the money? Is the night life the glue in your relationship? We’re not going to speculate, but we will make an assumption: When your husband is out till the wee hours, it might be easier to overlook when he has a big bank account.

Just sayin.”

Walpole:

Population: 24,102
Divorce rate: 10.5%
Bars per capita: 16th in the state
Liquor stores per capita: 25th

If you’re curious enough, here are the least drunk places in Massachusetts, according to RoadSnacks. Or the most sober, if you will:

1. Amherst Center (Pop. 19,330)
2. North Amherst (Pop. 7,611)
3. Weston (Pop. 11,430)
4. Cochituate (Pop. 6,556)
5. Franklin (Pop. 31,760)