Buying “nips” in Boston may soon be nipped in the bud.

The city of Boston is considering a possible ban on miniature liquor bottles, known to Bostonians as “nips” and to others across the country as “minis” or “shooters,” due to the amount of waste they add to the city.

Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo on Monday proposed banning city liquor stores from selling the mini bottles, which hold between 1.7 to 3.4 fluid ounces, in order to combat both alcohol abuse and mounting waste in city streets.

“The fact that this handled even one of these two issues would have been enough for me,” Arroyo said during a city hall hearing on the issue on Monday.

“The fact that it plays in both of these issues I think is an overwhelming reason to move forward with something like this.”

Arroyo also noted the bottles are too small to be recycled, and as a result, constantly end up littering city streets instead of ending up in the garbage.

With the proposal, the councilman hopes to slash the negative health effects that come with excessive or binge drinking.

Arroyo noted that the nips have a “detrimental impact on the health and wellbeing of Boston residents,” and said that there has been a decrease in public intoxication incidents that required ambulances in the communities that have banned the small liquor bottles from being sold.

Other cities and towns in Massachusetts including Chelsea, Newton, Falmouth, Wareham and Mashpee have banned the sale of the small bottles locally.

Chelsea, the city just north of Boston, became the first Massachusetts municipality to ban the miniature bottles in 2018 — and ever since there have been fewer ambulance calls for alcohol-related issues.

The city’s ambulance service responded to 742 calls for alcohol-related issues in 2017, however, just half a year after the ban was enacted that number fell to 556, Arroyo argued in his proposal.

The councilman also argued that the miniature bottles are favored by people who wish to drink in their cars, as the bottles are easy to hide from cops and toss out the window. He also argued that they are preferred by underage drinkers looking to hide bottles.

Liquor stores in Boston have pushed back against Arroyo’s proposal, with many noting that businesses in municipalities with the ban have suffered financially as a result.

Stores in Chelsea saw a collective $6 million loss in revenue as a result of the ban, while stores in neighboring communities made greater profits.

“So people were still buying them, they just moved over the next community,” said Robert Mellion, the executive director of the Massachusetts Package Store Association, which supports an expanded bottle bill that would include a deposit on the miniature bottles.

The final decision on the ban will rest with the city’s Licensing Board, which regulates Boston’s liquor stores. Board Chair Kathleen Joyce said on Monday that applicants for new licenses or license transfers have already been asked to voluntarily agree not to sell the little bottles.

With Post wires.