Re: guest commentary “Booze bad doing its job,” Aug. 21 Beacon, page 6: The author of this letter draws many correlations to the beaches being safer, with less trash, and more cost-effective for the city to manage (in trash collection and police costs). Each and every one of those statements is unsubstantiated and false. First, the beach communities are not any safer. Anyone can do the comparisons on Arjis (www.arjis.org). In fact, there has been a drastic increase in sexual assault in the beach area since the ban was put in place. Second, there is not less trash. I walk my dog on the boardwalk every morning and every evening, weekdays and weekends. The amount of trash is the exact same, if not more. Yes, the type of trash is different, but the quantity is the same. Last but not least, the city spends the exact same amount on garbage collection and police enforcement now as it did a year ago. Please, contact the chief or deputy chief of police, as both of them will inform you that the budget has not changed nor has allocation of resources changed. The same number of police are on the beach area, but what has changed is that they are now on the sand making sure everyone knows they are there. Anyone else wondering why they were not on the sand before ? Were there problems in the beach community last year? Yes. Are there still problems in the beach community? Yes. We should be working to address the specific problems directly. Each policy change should have a “criteria for success” defined prior to implementation and routinely reevaluated to ensure they are having a positive effect.