It’s earning its name.
Corona, Queens, which shares a name with the popular Mexican beer, leads the city in drunk-driving arrests, NYPD statistics show.
There were 257 drunk-driving arrests so far this year in the 115th Precinct, which includes parts of Corona, East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights.
Roosevelt Avenue, in the heart of the neighborhood, has 80 bars and booze-peddling restaurants attracting drivers from around the region.
“They are always drinking around here,” said beauty-shop owner Maria Samaniego. “The reason why you have a lot of drunk driving around here is because you have a lot of bars.”
While DWI busts have dropped over 8 percent citywide so far this year compared with the same period in 2009, arrests remained exactly the same in the 115th Precinct.
The neighboring 110th Precinct — which includes Elmhurst and the rest of Corona, with notoriously hard-to-find mass transit and yellow cabs — had 167 DWI arrests through June 6 for the city’s second highest total.
And the 6th Precinct in the West Village has reported 149 DWI arrests.
Some of the lowest numbers of arrests — but the highest increases — came from the bar-packed Lower East Side’s 7th Precinct and the East Village’s 9th Precinct, statistics show.
Additional checkpoints have been set up in the area, helping to explain why DWI arrests have skyrocketed from 33 in 2009 to 54 during the same period this year in the 7th precinct and from 24 to 53 in the 9th precinct.
“It’s being given more attention,” a police spokesman said, explaining the neighborhood’s recent spike.
“Officers are paying close attention to who’s getting behind the wheel and how they are traveling.”
One reason Corona is head and shoulders above the rest of the city, police sources said, is the heavy congestion along Roosevelt Avenue.
Drivers are often swerving to avoid double-parked cars, getting into fender-benders, and making other infractions, like having headlights off or not signaling, that bring them to the attention of cops.
At the same time, the NYPD has assigned 100 “impact” cops to the area to reduce crime.
Unlike other areas, the relatively low number of street crimes in the neighborhood gives these cops more time to focus on DWIs.
“Impact cops on foot posts are making . . . arrests,” the source said. “They’ll see a guy at a traffic light nodding off, walk over, smell he’s been drinking and make an arrest.”
A Post photographer witnessed cops pulling over at least a dozen drivers within one hour at a Corona checkpoint early Saturday.
Three motorists were taken into custody after failing the field sobriety test at 114th Street near 34th Avenue.
Citywide, DWI arrests are up a stunning 93.4 percent since 2001, according to the NYPD.
Additional reporting by Doug
john.doyle@nypost.com