GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. - A Great Barrington Selectboard member is raising the issue of what they say are nip bottles littering the area.  

“I think just enough’s enough and were not trying to eliminate alcohol or anything like that, but its these single purpose uses that people feel apparently have no remorse about just drinking it while they’re driving and then just whipping it out their window,” said Great Barrington Selectboard member Eric Gabriel.

Gabriel says he spent quite a bit of his time on Earth Day picking up nip bottles in the Housatonic section of town and picked up even more with Spectrum News 1 watching on Tuesday. 

“It’s a double thing its small plastic its pollution it’s also an obvious sign of a lot of drinking and driving which is all levels of scariness people not taking responsibility for themselves or responsibility for mother earth,” said Gabriel.

Gabriel and a friend say they picked up around 300 bottles on Earth Day alone and found even more Tuesday.

Spectrum News 1 checked in with Great Barrington liquor stores about the idea of banning nips.

Ed Domaney of Domaney’s Liquors and Fine Wines says he is overall indifferent to the idea.

“I've been saying that they’re going to ban these for many years because people do not respect the environment," Domaney said. "They litter. It's awful. And I can’t blame the sentiment of the public in thinking they should be eliminated."

Domaney believes kids should be taught not to litter and that if banned people may start throwing out larger bottles.

“When they get rid of these if they do, they are going to end up with quarter pints the next size like these in double bottles," Domaney said. "And if we have those, every company will start making them and start promoting them and people could litter with those."

And other stores like Plaza Package in Great Barrington are totally against a ban. Jigar Sinroza believes a lot of their revenue comes from nips. He believes people will just get nips in neighboring towns making it harder to support his employees.

"I personally think that we will just be giving our businesses away to the neighboring city or the town, whoever it is," said Sinroza.  

He also says it helps people drink less when they choose to buy smaller portions.

“I was talking to a bunch of consumers and they said that they want nip because it’s sort of a controlled portion," Sinroza said. "So if they want to have two nips at the end of the shift before work the next day at night they’ll only get two. But if they buy a pint, or a half pint, a size up, they fear they might consume the whole thing. So that’s actually going to increase alcoholism."

Sinroza says he sees the concern of litter but says litter comes in all different forms of trash not just nips and people will just throw out the bigger bottles as well. 

Back at the Selectboard, Gabriel says he plans to bring up the issue to the Selectboard at their priorities meeting in July.