HELENA — Montana cities could adopt ordinances banning public drunkenness and allowing police to take intoxicated people to jail under a bill that passed through a Senate committee Tuesday.

Republican Sen. Doug Kary of Billings introduced Senate Bill 360 to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee voted unanimously to pass the bill, which heads next to the Senate floor for consideration.

Kary said his city needs another tool to address a problem with chronic public intoxication downtown.

Under current law, intoxicated people may not be subjected to criminal prosecution because of their consumption of alcohol, but should be referred to some sort of treatment. 

Under Kary’s bill, city governments could adopt an ordinance prohibiting public intoxication that would allow police officers to detain a person who appears to be intoxicated in public for their protection or the protection of others.

In Billings, it would be part of a larger plan to help people who have chronic alcohol problems and run-ins with police, according to Lisa K. Harmon, executive director of the Downtown Billings Alliance. She said her group has done extensive research and determined that 74 such people downtown have run up costs of over $8 million in emergency services, arrests and citations.

“We feel like we’re failing to assist this population and failing to provide quality of life,” she said.

She and others want this tool to use in concert with plans for a sober center, where police could take drunken people up to five times before they would face a choice of jail or treatment, Harmon said.

Billings Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Bruce MacIntyre said he’s talked with representatives of seven other Montana chambers of commerce, all who say they have the same problem in their communities.

Before the committee vote, Sen. Jennifer Fielder said she saw the problem firsthand in Billings last summer.

“It was pretty ugly,” the Thompson Falls Republican said. “That problem does need to be addressed.”

No one spoke in opposition to the bill.