When Hurricane Sandy hits New York this afternoon, you can expect three things: wind, rain, and a bunch of shit-faced New Yorkers.
New York City emergency officials advised residents over the weekend to stock up on things like water, flashlights, canned food, candles, and other items to help New Yorkers weather the impending hurricane that’s expected to come crashing into the Big Apple about 4 p.m.
Not on the list was booze — which, according to alcohol distributors in Queens, apparently is essential to surviving a hurricane.
Liquor and grocery stores in the city saw a spike in the sale of booze over the weekend as New Yorkers apparently plan to ride out the storm with a buzz.
“Wine and rum,” a liquor store employee in Long Island City told the Voice
last night. “That’s what everyone seems to be buying today. Amaretto,
too. I think people are celebrating the hurricane by making hurricanes.”
The
employee says it’s not just young people loading up on booze, either —
“old ladies” and businessmen also have been stocking up in anticipation
of the storm.
A clerk at a grocery store — also in Long Island City — says beer has been in high demand for the past 36 hours.
“We
ran out of Stella [Artois] — people are staying home tomorrow, so they
probably want to sit around and get wasted,” he says. “Why not, ya
know?”
Bars, however, aren’t feeling as much of Sandy’s love —
at the Alewife in Queens last night, there were precisely two customers.
When we left, there were precisely zero.
The storm is expected
to get pretty nasty about 4 p.m. — at which point we’re anticipating
the city’s collective BAC to rise to roughly .14.
