Public inebriation and the problems that go along with it can be the scourge of a neighborhood. Just ask residents of Tacoma's South End and East Side, where empty cans of beer and the smell of degenerate urine once ruled the day. 

Luckily, residents of the East Side and South End are seeing relief - now protected as one of Tacoma's two "Alcohol Impact Areas," or AIAs, where the sale of high-octane booze and wine is prohibited. The East Side and South End AIA - which covers neighborhoods bounded by Interstate 5 on the west and north, South 72nd and 76th streets on the south, and Portland Avenue on the east - took effect in October 2008 and reduced the amount of alcohol related service calls to police in the area by 30 percent in the first year, according to previous reports. Tacoma's first AIA was established in 2001 and met similar success, covering the downtown and Hilltop areas.

However, just as many predicted prior to the creation of Tacoma's first and second AIA, there have been unwanted side effects: mainly, a staggering influx of common street drunks in areas typically immune to such unpleasantries, specifically Tacoma's North End.

Known for manicured lawns, old money and blaring whiteness, Tacoma's North End doesn't have much experience dealing with things such as societal outcasts - many with significant mental problems - that find the will to go on babbling on street corners or pissing in alleys through the sweet energy of malt liquor.

But that's quickly changing.

"Yesterday, I was just minding my own business, grabbing my dry cleaning and thinking about hitting up the olive bar at Met Market when - boom! - I see a homeless man taking a dump in the alley. He must have been drunk, right? I mean, who takes a dump in an alley?" asks longtime North End resident Peter Swenson.

"I just don't want to have to drive my Land Rover around that kind of thing. It's unsightly. That's why I live in the North End."

The influx of street drunks in search of high content alcohol products in Tacoma's North End is not just measurable by a noticeable increase in alley defecation, say residents. Since the institution of the East Side and South End AIA, it's become commonplace to find empty cans of Joose and Camo in previously pristine North End parks and recreation spots.

And it gets worse. Just the other day, residents report, a group of North Enders heading to a City Club function faced the intimidation of aggressive panhandling while exiting the Starbucks on the corner of 26th and Proctor. After demanding spare change from the group of middle-aged, longtime North End residents, a bearded and unkempt panhandler - who was reportedly intoxicated or mentally ill (it's so tough to tell, you know!) - started shouting belligerently about judgment day and Sandra Bullock's failed marriage. The commotion was responsible for at least two spilled Americanos.

Later, the man is believed to have urinated in public - though no one with Starbucks or the North End Neighborhood Association could confirm this.

"It's definitely a problem," says Jane McDougal, owner of a 3,500 square foot craftsman style "charmer" on North 35th Street. McDougal and her husband, Charles, have been trying to sell the home for over a year, and they say the increase in street drunks is scaring off potential buyers who otherwise wouldn't balk at the $700,000 asking price.

"Look, if we don't get at least $700,000 out of this house we're screwed," says McDougal. "I mean, look at that view. Look at this neighborhood. Look at that blond white family across the street. This house - which was always meant to be a stepping stone - is so worth $700,000.

"But with all these drunks peeing everywhere, I just don't know," says McDougal. "I just don't know."

For their part, residents of Tacoma's South End and East Side seem less than concerned about the North End's new problem.

"I guess if I was a street drunk, that's where I'd go too," says Willis Southerland, who lives near Lincoln High School. "I mean, it's really nice over there. They have trees and decorated intersections. And the Safeway is really nice too."

"But do I feel sorry for the North End? Not exactly," Southerland continues. "As long as my neighborhood doesn't smell like pee anymore, that's all I care about."

APRIL FOOLS'