A few years ago the government in Estonia raised taxes a bit too much on alcohol. The result was that Estonians started going to Latvia to buy alcohol. I believe even a lot of Finns are (or were) now buying alcohol from Latvia. Even alcohol that's made in Estonia is cheaper in Latvia.

There were some additional effects to this as well. Food is also cheaper in Latvia. Some people ended up doing a lot of their grocery shopping in Latvia as, because they were already there for be alcohol.

Politically, the Social Democrats got most of the blame for the tax increase. They had a large drop in votes in the most recent parliamentary election.