Tubing While Drunk

Stokes County considers the end of an era

On Monday, September 28, 2015, the Stokes County Board of Commissioners will hear public comment on a proposed state law which would prohibit the possession and consumption of alcohol on the 50 miles of the Dan River which lie inside the county’s jurisdiction.

What!!??

Yup - you read that right. Drunken river tubing could soon be a thing of the past here in one of North Carolina’s best known tubing destinations. This move may be hard for many to accept; a strike against freedom, a slap in the face of our renegade heritage, more evidence of the “nanny state”.

While you unbunch your knickers please allow me a paragraph or two to explain what an alcohol ban could mean for our Dan River and the Hanging Rock tourism industry.

Currently the section of the Dan River flowing from Hanging Rock State Park’s public access on Flinchum Road down to the two River Tubing businesses in Danbury looks like a dump with cans, bottles and other debris covering the riverbed and banks. And on a typical summer Saturday the cultural environment is even more trashy with intoxicated tubers of every description. Anemic public education efforts to discourage littering have done little to improve the problem. Undercover Wildlife Enforcement Officers on the river and Sheriff’s Department officers on the banks in Danbury have helped a little - but not much.

When people ask me for recommendations on family tubing with children on the Dan River I rarely recommend the Danbury section due to the litter and drunken behavior that persists there.

Joan Allen, owner of the General Dan Tubing Co. in Danbury, NC, has worked very hard for the past few years to encourage responsible behavior by her tubers offering rebates in exchange for bags full of trash collected while floating the river. She understands that families are her most valuable customers and that families require a clean river that doesn’t feel like a “beer bash.” But the problem is larger than her business can address alone.

And so we arrive at the most extreme solution; a prohibition on alcohol.

To understand what this may mean to tourism here in the Hanging Rock area we have a perfect model in the western North Carolina county of Polk. In 2005 the Green River in Polk County looked an awful lot like the Dan River in Stokes County today. Every summer day that the Green River was running it was choked with hundreds of tubers drinking to excess and depositing their empty bottles and cans in the riverbed.

In 2006 the NC General Assembly passed a new law, sponsored by Polk County’s representative, that prohibited the possession and consumption of alcohol on rivers within the county. The initial crackdown was intense and upset quite a few people. One of the tubing companies operating on the Green even sold their business thinking that the ban would destroy the flow of tourists.

But 6 years later tubing operators on the Green River in Polk County have seen business more than double. The river is once again pristine. Vacation rentals and campground business have grown along the river and on the ridgelines above it. And the small town of Saluda, NC, has experienced economic growth that should make every rural mountain town jealous. Restaurants and drinking establishments have grown in response to river-tourists seeking to toast the day with a beer or glass of wine AFTER floating.

Could Hanging Rock and Stokes County experience the same type of adventure-tourism renaissance that has bolstered tourism in Polk County?

I say yes.

Stokes News
2015-09-17

Am I disappointed that it will no longer be legal for me to enjoy a beer while taking a break on a river trip? Sure. Am I excited about the prospect of a litter-free river experience without offensive drunks for families? You bet! It’s a small sacrifice with the potential for major returns.

• The proposed legislation.
• Story in The Stokes News (link when the digital version comes online).

I close with this little video I made several years ago when talk of an alcohol ban was first getting started...