Boston, not Salt Lake City, is 'least drunk' city

SALT LAKE CITY — Boston beat out Salt Lake City for the "least drunk" ranking in the latest issue of Men's Health magazine, which rated 100 major U.S. cities on sobriety in its March issue.

Whether being bested by a city that is home to the famed "Cheers" bar has anything to do with the recent loosening of Utah's liquor laws wasn't addressed in the survey. Editors used a "statistical sobriety checkpoint" based on death rates from alcoholic liver disease, liquor-involved auto accidents, frequency of binge-drinking, number of DUI arrests and the severity of DUI penalties to come up with the rankings.

Rochester and Yonkers, N.Y., also beat out Utah's capital city, which ranked 97th and received an "A" on the scale of drunkenness. Miami and Newark, N.J., joined Salt Lake to round out the "least drunk."

Fresno, Calif., was dubbed as America's "drunkest" city, followed by Reno, Nev.; Billings, Mont.; Riverside, Calif.; and Austin, Texas, which all received an "F" grade.

Without a large enough population, the Provo-Orem area didn't appear on the list.

As the home of LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University, Provo is recognized annually for having the school that regularly ranks as the nation's most "stone cold sober" institution of higher learning.

For more information, see www.menshealth.com.

— Carrie A. Moore