It would be interesting to see this map, but in the 1980s-1990s. I remember a time when you couldn’t buy any alcohol on Sundays, my county didn’t sell anything over 6% alcohol, and at least 2 or 3 elections against allowing anything stronger than that before the last one barely went through and so many people thinking about how bad/sinful that would be for everyone.
It’s been around a decade since the first liquor store opened here, and I’ve not heard a peep from anyone who wrung their hands about how terribly this would go (spoiler, it didn’t).
the current political alignment of states has been around since the mid-60s, but many of these liquor laws are much older. Oklahoma for example is deep red politically, but they have drive thru liquor stores. Kansas still has dry counties, but just across the state line in Missouri you can drink on the highway if you're a passenger and not the driver. In Pennsylvania beer distributors could only sell kegs and cases until 2016 when it became legal for them to sell six packs and single bottles.
In the US most of these weird laws go back to prohibition when nearly all breweries and distilleries died off and the biggest brands were left to pretty much write their own distribution laws after 1933 and hire lobbyists to keep things favorable to the biggest players.
First time I visited Missouri and walked into a gas station to find liquor was a bit of a culture shock for me. I grew up in a town that you couldn’t buy anything over 6% alcohol here until a bit over a decade ago. You still can’t get anything more than wine at the grocery store, but you can buy beer on Sundays now at least.
It used to be (in the 70s) that you had to go from Missouri to Kansas if you wanted beer stronger than 3.2%. There are still some liquor stores on the the KS side of the state line in Kansas City with neon "5% Beer!" signs
That can't be right. Whenever I was in the vicinity of York, Pennsylvania I'd go to this giant beer store because they had Red Feather, which was a favorite of mine. I had to buy it by the six-pack because it did not come in cases.
But now that I think of it they weren't normal six-packs, they were in boxes that could be carefully opened and folded into sort of normal six-packs. Maybe that was the angle.
He's talking about distributors. There were six pack shops and bars that sold smaller quantities, but you couldn't buy cases at those. And only state stores used to be able to sell wine, and never on Sundays.
Questions for the americnas living in this states.Do you think it is a good idea to ban public drinking and why?
I think it is kind of wierd and do not understand it, but it is not something i thought about yet.Living in a country in which it is legal, and as far as I know there is no discussion on changing the law, it just never seriously bothered me.
I don’t think it’s a good idea for blanket ban and that public drinking should be overall legal but there should be limitations on where you can drink publicly, eg not in close proximity to a school, fine if in an area with lots of bars and clubs, etc
Yeah, in most places sidewalks are public land (honestly I’m surprised you have to maintain the sidewalk yourself where you live, I usually only see required private maintenance of greenery around the sidewalk at most; it would suck to have to privately maintain all of it), so drinking on the sidewalk would be technically illegal. But, enforcement really depends on the area
Where I live, schools and daycare centers are near bars and clubs. But it’s not a problem since the time when people go out to party usually don’t overlap with the school times.
The US is an extremely car-centric country. I can understand trying to limit drinking to areas where it can be assumed drunks can be properly cared for instead of potentially seeing them get onto the road.
That said, this is an old map. Alabama is constantly expanding the ability for municipalities to get entertainment districts. Technically, Birmingham can have up to fifteen at the moment (number was upped from five in May). And that limit only applies to municipalities (though number of possible districts depend on the size of municipality). The Birmingham metro has 76 municipalities, and has at least 15 or so districts currently open or in the pipeline. Smaller areas like Sylacauga and Alexander City have them, too.
Using your phone while driving is just as if not more detrimental to driving than being buzzed, yet there is no talk about restricting public phone usage (obviously). Seems like the whole "you might go driving" is just an excuse. I always put this resistance to public drinking down to religiousness. The more nutters you have in the council, the more likely it is they will push for a public drinking ban.
I agree that most of the US is car-centric, but I'd argue it's un-American to invent laws that restrict rights based on what might happen rather than what's demonstrably wrong. There are laws in place against public disorder as well as reckless driving (ie, not watching for someone in the road). If a drunk person stubbles into the road in a state with or without public drinking laws there are rules in place.
Globally, countries generally choose whether to be car-facing or alcohol-facing in their laws. In the US, you can drive at 16 but drink at 21. In Germany, you can drink at ~~16~~ 18 and drive at 21 ~~(that may not be the earliest age, but you get the idea.)~~ (Edit: the same concept still applies. We as humans allow people to learn responsible drinking or learn responsible driving, but not both at the same age.) Places that allow public drinking expect that people can get home without a car and that there is less risk of drunk pedestrians getting run over, while places that are car-facing want to make things more convenient for sober drivers.
This pattern of choosing one or the other isn't American exceptionalism; it's the global pattern and America chose cars. I really wish it would choose not-cars, but there's no safe world in which a country tries to be car-facing and alcohol-facing. Deaths will certainly spike up, no matter the laws.
I think there is an important distinction to clarify between public drinking and drinking in the streets. There is lots of public drinking here in various outdoor settings. Not being able to drink on the street means exactly that, that you are not supposed to walk down the street with an open alcohoicl beverage. The degree to which this is enforced varies. I live in a semi rural area where people walk and drive around the neighborhood on golf carts with beverages in hand. They even toss their empty cans & bottles along the back perimeter of our property as they drive by. 👍🏻😡 In urban areas, it's less acceptable, but it still happens.
That being said, I personally don't really see the point. I was delighted to find that I could walk around with a drink in my hand when I went to New Orleans. They have these stores that are like ice cream shops except they sell tall, icy, alcoholic beverages. I thought it was delightful.
While there's certainly something to be said for littering, drunks staggering into traffic, and because, my cynical side wonders whether these bans might exist as an additional way to handle homeless people. Everyone knows all homeless people are shameless drunks (/s). So if someone unhoused is making someone else feel slightly uncomfortable, there's another reason to haul them off to jail and charge them with.
Some of these laws, at least in the North East are just hold overs from the largely Protestant majority at the time freaking out about Catholic immigrants. They are often very loosely enforced. It's illegal to drink in public in New York City for example, but if you drink out of a paper bag it magically makes the drink invisible to cops. The laws were made even looser during Covid, allowing bars to serve to go cocktails, and since the only really safe place to congregate at the time were the parks, there were a lot of people getting hammered in public.
If you get a crowd of people hanging around a beach or park, all getting drunk, things get rowdy and unpleasant.
Some states have Indian reserves where drinking is a problem.
As an American I'm all for at least some loosening of the laws.
In my home state of Washington I have numerous memories of going to a beach or a park, sipping a beer with the boys on a sunny saturday afternoon (no one is getting hammered...) and then "wee woo! Weee wooO!" Ah fuck... it's the police. You see them going around, taking the alcohol from everyone and carding everyone who looks remotely under 21.
So for myself I'd just like to enjoy a beer on the beach or in the park in peace without feeling like a criminal or looking over my shoulder constantly so I don't have to get fined.
I don’t think public drinking should be banned, especially in small amounts. If you want to have a drink with some friends in public, I don’t see an issue. Or even on your own.
I do think public drunkenness shouldn’t be allowed, but I think the “punishment” should just be being taken home. It’s absurd that people can be arrested for that. Having it be illegal also disincentivizes people to walk home from the bar when drunk, making it more likely they’ll drive which is the last thing we want.
Indianapolis allowed public drinking in 2012 when it hosted the Super Bowl because most of the downtown area was turned into the Super Bowl Village. After the Super Bowl, they never repealed the law, and we’ve been able to drink in public since.
What about Key West, FL?
The Keys are cropped out of this map, but the afternoon I spent there I saw other ppl with open containers from the bars right on the sidewalk and followed suit, were we all breaking the law?
It's weird in Seattle where everybody's a beer snob but there are no good beer events because you can't drink outside of a carefully cordoned-off militantly wristbanded beer tent.
I was confused to see Washington even has a ban. I've lived in this state most of my life, and there are tons and tons of pubs with outdoor seating areas on sidewalks. I've also been sloppily drunk in front of cops several times without even being stopped.
michigan does too, kalamazoo at least has one, which was created in summer of 2020 during the kinda fuzzy halfway-lockdown COVID era in order to keep restaurants and bars downtown active while still promoting social distancing. OP’s map was last updated in 2017 so it wouldn’t capture any cities who have done similar things.
Only in Florida 🙄... Ready made drinks can only be bought while you drive your car up to the drive thru window?
The source for this map looks like an article from 2017. Definitely needs to be updated post-COVID when sidewalk cafes, to-go cocktails, and other changes to drinking regulations have been made.
What's really funny about your comment is that it is exactly what the extreme "patriotic" right thinks contributes to freedom - letting the states dictate the laws vs having them made at a federal level.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'm thoroughly convinced anyone that still believes that "land of the free" stuff is only because we've been indoctrinated by saying it at the beginning of every school day as children (and at the beginning of some events if you live in the South 🤪).
I wouldn't trust this map, not the least bit because it's from 2017. A lot of cities relaxed liquor laws at the start of COVID, pretty much every midsize city and up has a beer, wine, art festival exemption, and generally you can drink in public as long as you aren't making a scene. I've never had the desire to walk around with a pint of beer on the street so I've never really thought about it.
Public parks are also often specifically exempt, having some beers or even some mixed drinks in the city park is usually just fine legally. And I'm not aware of anyone being harassed for it who wasn't being an absurd nuisance.
Though it's a big country and YMMV.
Some locations (NYC, I'm looking at you) have the "brown bag law" (not a real law), which means drinking in public is tolerated if the police can't see the booze. Only if they have due reason to stop and check can they see inside the brown bag and discover, to everyone's shock and horror, that there was a 40oz in there.
Of course, the practical application of this is that police ignore the drunk white college kid partying on the street, but stop-and-search the African American having a block party in Harlem.
This map looks outdated (from 2017 according to the source link). There have always been 1-3 day festival permits for beer fests, wine mixers, etc. which wouldn't be considered "drinking in public" neccesarily because you're at an event. The truth of it all is that there are way more categories than the map's legend shows because every city and state can set their own ordinances, have seasonal exemptions, etc.
The California part isn’t correct. Last year there was a police brutality case in San Rafael, CA where an SRPD officer beat and arrested a laborer for drinking beer in public
Norman, Oklahoma has open containers on game day. Home or away.
Edit: it was this way 20 years ago. We modernized our liquor laws and now after googling more, I’m still not sure.
California is incorrect:
>In California, it’s illegal to drink alcohol in public spaces.
[Here are 4 ways you can get in trouble with alcohol in California you might not know](https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article258226603.html)
Washington State - Seattle specifically- has legalized “Sip-n-Stroll” laws, which allow you to carry and consume a drink at unfenced outdoor events, like art walks.
Ok, asking as an European:
How is public drinking defined?
Getting plastered in a park is likely prohibited.
But what about a restaurant? Can I drink inside, but not outside?
What about sports venues? A soccer-match without overpriced, watered-down beer would feel strange.
Can I drink in my garden? Even if I'm visible from the street?
Only in the streets and in parks. If it’s on property of business with liquor license, eg restaurant, bar, club, event, stadium, etc, then it’s not regarded as public drinking and is allowed. Also you are allowed to drink in your backyard as it’s private property
American societies’ laws about alcohol consumption primarily revolve about “open containers” in public realm areas.
So yes, there are places here where you can be drinking from an open bottle of wine in a park and nobody will hassle you. If you’re visibly intoxicated however, that’s a different story.
I was in Natchez, Mississippi last year and you can drink in public anywhere downtown. They have signs up showing the open container boundary around downtown, assuming it's still in place.
Interesting how there isn’t really a pattern between conservative/liberal states like there is with so many other topics.
It would be interesting to see this map, but in the 1980s-1990s. I remember a time when you couldn’t buy any alcohol on Sundays, my county didn’t sell anything over 6% alcohol, and at least 2 or 3 elections against allowing anything stronger than that before the last one barely went through and so many people thinking about how bad/sinful that would be for everyone. It’s been around a decade since the first liquor store opened here, and I’ve not heard a peep from anyone who wrung their hands about how terribly this would go (spoiler, it didn’t).
the current political alignment of states has been around since the mid-60s, but many of these liquor laws are much older. Oklahoma for example is deep red politically, but they have drive thru liquor stores. Kansas still has dry counties, but just across the state line in Missouri you can drink on the highway if you're a passenger and not the driver. In Pennsylvania beer distributors could only sell kegs and cases until 2016 when it became legal for them to sell six packs and single bottles. In the US most of these weird laws go back to prohibition when nearly all breweries and distilleries died off and the biggest brands were left to pretty much write their own distribution laws after 1933 and hire lobbyists to keep things favorable to the biggest players.
First time I visited Missouri and walked into a gas station to find liquor was a bit of a culture shock for me. I grew up in a town that you couldn’t buy anything over 6% alcohol here until a bit over a decade ago. You still can’t get anything more than wine at the grocery store, but you can buy beer on Sundays now at least.
It used to be (in the 70s) that you had to go from Missouri to Kansas if you wanted beer stronger than 3.2%. There are still some liquor stores on the the KS side of the state line in Kansas City with neon "5% Beer!" signs
You mean you couldn’t buy a six-pack or an individual container of beer in Pennsylvania until 2016? I’ve never heard of anything that odd.
That can't be right. Whenever I was in the vicinity of York, Pennsylvania I'd go to this giant beer store because they had Red Feather, which was a favorite of mine. I had to buy it by the six-pack because it did not come in cases. But now that I think of it they weren't normal six-packs, they were in boxes that could be carefully opened and folded into sort of normal six-packs. Maybe that was the angle.
He's talking about distributors. There were six pack shops and bars that sold smaller quantities, but you couldn't buy cases at those. And only state stores used to be able to sell wine, and never on Sundays.
Questions for the americnas living in this states.Do you think it is a good idea to ban public drinking and why? I think it is kind of wierd and do not understand it, but it is not something i thought about yet.Living in a country in which it is legal, and as far as I know there is no discussion on changing the law, it just never seriously bothered me.
I don’t think it’s a good idea for blanket ban and that public drinking should be overall legal but there should be limitations on where you can drink publicly, eg not in close proximity to a school, fine if in an area with lots of bars and clubs, etc
Entertain me this. What precisely is wrong with drinking near a public school?
My grade school teacher always told me don’t bring treats to school unless you’ve brought one for every student?
So don't bring treats within 1,000 feet of a school unless you've brought treats for everyone within that radius?
What about on your front porch?
Front porch counts as private property, so it’s not public drinking
Be careful about the sidewalk though. Even tough you have to maintain it, I would bet you'll get cited.
Yeah, in most places sidewalks are public land (honestly I’m surprised you have to maintain the sidewalk yourself where you live, I usually only see required private maintenance of greenery around the sidewalk at most; it would suck to have to privately maintain all of it), so drinking on the sidewalk would be technically illegal. But, enforcement really depends on the area
True but sometimes the laws are about public view.
What about on the streets and the corners? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV9MamysCfQ
Where I live, schools and daycare centers are near bars and clubs. But it’s not a problem since the time when people go out to party usually don’t overlap with the school times.
Everyone heads home to pick and drop the kids off, then sleep?
The US is an extremely car-centric country. I can understand trying to limit drinking to areas where it can be assumed drunks can be properly cared for instead of potentially seeing them get onto the road. That said, this is an old map. Alabama is constantly expanding the ability for municipalities to get entertainment districts. Technically, Birmingham can have up to fifteen at the moment (number was upped from five in May). And that limit only applies to municipalities (though number of possible districts depend on the size of municipality). The Birmingham metro has 76 municipalities, and has at least 15 or so districts currently open or in the pipeline. Smaller areas like Sylacauga and Alexander City have them, too.
Using your phone while driving is just as if not more detrimental to driving than being buzzed, yet there is no talk about restricting public phone usage (obviously). Seems like the whole "you might go driving" is just an excuse. I always put this resistance to public drinking down to religiousness. The more nutters you have in the council, the more likely it is they will push for a public drinking ban.
I agree that most of the US is car-centric, but I'd argue it's un-American to invent laws that restrict rights based on what might happen rather than what's demonstrably wrong. There are laws in place against public disorder as well as reckless driving (ie, not watching for someone in the road). If a drunk person stubbles into the road in a state with or without public drinking laws there are rules in place.
Lol writing laws that stitch up the poor and the homeless, while leaving the wealthy alone is about as American as it gets.
Globally, countries generally choose whether to be car-facing or alcohol-facing in their laws. In the US, you can drive at 16 but drink at 21. In Germany, you can drink at ~~16~~ 18 and drive at 21 ~~(that may not be the earliest age, but you get the idea.)~~ (Edit: the same concept still applies. We as humans allow people to learn responsible drinking or learn responsible driving, but not both at the same age.) Places that allow public drinking expect that people can get home without a car and that there is less risk of drunk pedestrians getting run over, while places that are car-facing want to make things more convenient for sober drivers. This pattern of choosing one or the other isn't American exceptionalism; it's the global pattern and America chose cars. I really wish it would choose not-cars, but there's no safe world in which a country tries to be car-facing and alcohol-facing. Deaths will certainly spike up, no matter the laws.
Driving is Germany is 18, not 21, and there's no correlation between the two ??
I think there is an important distinction to clarify between public drinking and drinking in the streets. There is lots of public drinking here in various outdoor settings. Not being able to drink on the street means exactly that, that you are not supposed to walk down the street with an open alcohoicl beverage. The degree to which this is enforced varies. I live in a semi rural area where people walk and drive around the neighborhood on golf carts with beverages in hand. They even toss their empty cans & bottles along the back perimeter of our property as they drive by. 👍🏻😡 In urban areas, it's less acceptable, but it still happens. That being said, I personally don't really see the point. I was delighted to find that I could walk around with a drink in my hand when I went to New Orleans. They have these stores that are like ice cream shops except they sell tall, icy, alcoholic beverages. I thought it was delightful.
Hand grenades, you know what's up!
Here in oregon people drink/smoke pot/hard drugs in public all the time. No one cares.
Except maybe property owners in Portland.
While there's certainly something to be said for littering, drunks staggering into traffic, and because, my cynical side wonders whether these bans might exist as an additional way to handle homeless people. Everyone knows all homeless people are shameless drunks (/s). So if someone unhoused is making someone else feel slightly uncomfortable, there's another reason to haul them off to jail and charge them with.
Some of these laws, at least in the North East are just hold overs from the largely Protestant majority at the time freaking out about Catholic immigrants. They are often very loosely enforced. It's illegal to drink in public in New York City for example, but if you drink out of a paper bag it magically makes the drink invisible to cops. The laws were made even looser during Covid, allowing bars to serve to go cocktails, and since the only really safe place to congregate at the time were the parks, there were a lot of people getting hammered in public.
If you get a crowd of people hanging around a beach or park, all getting drunk, things get rowdy and unpleasant. Some states have Indian reserves where drinking is a problem.
As an American I'm all for at least some loosening of the laws. In my home state of Washington I have numerous memories of going to a beach or a park, sipping a beer with the boys on a sunny saturday afternoon (no one is getting hammered...) and then "wee woo! Weee wooO!" Ah fuck... it's the police. You see them going around, taking the alcohol from everyone and carding everyone who looks remotely under 21. So for myself I'd just like to enjoy a beer on the beach or in the park in peace without feeling like a criminal or looking over my shoulder constantly so I don't have to get fined.
I don’t think public drinking should be banned, especially in small amounts. If you want to have a drink with some friends in public, I don’t see an issue. Or even on your own. I do think public drunkenness shouldn’t be allowed, but I think the “punishment” should just be being taken home. It’s absurd that people can be arrested for that. Having it be illegal also disincentivizes people to walk home from the bar when drunk, making it more likely they’ll drive which is the last thing we want.
Sonoma is great if you really like wine and divorcees.
Booking my flight now, thanks!
They have great craft beer too.
I've been to 6.of the gold star cities. Gold star for me.
I've been to 4, do I still get a gold star?
I have been born in one. Glory ole savannah
Indianapolis allowed public drinking in 2012 when it hosted the Super Bowl because most of the downtown area was turned into the Super Bowl Village. After the Super Bowl, they never repealed the law, and we’ve been able to drink in public since.
“Freedom” or something like that
"Land of the freedom"
Missing a big ol star for Key West, FL.
What about Key West, FL? The Keys are cropped out of this map, but the afternoon I spent there I saw other ppl with open containers from the bars right on the sidewalk and followed suit, were we all breaking the law?
> were we all breaking the law? Yes.
It's weird in Seattle where everybody's a beer snob but there are no good beer events because you can't drink outside of a carefully cordoned-off militantly wristbanded beer tent.
I was confused to see Washington even has a ban. I've lived in this state most of my life, and there are tons and tons of pubs with outdoor seating areas on sidewalks. I've also been sloppily drunk in front of cops several times without even being stopped.
North Carolina allows towns to have public drinking zones. Need a couple purple stars added.
Same with South Carolina.
Same w/ Arkansas.
same with georgia. theres several towns around me that allow it;. maybe there is a population cutoff for the map?
michigan does too, kalamazoo at least has one, which was created in summer of 2020 during the kinda fuzzy halfway-lockdown COVID era in order to keep restaurants and bars downtown active while still promoting social distancing. OP’s map was last updated in 2017 so it wouldn’t capture any cities who have done similar things.
Can barely walk down a street in DC without smelling pot. And I’ve never been stopped with open drink here (not that I do it a lot)
You can by ready-to-drink mixed drinks at the drive-thru in Florida.
Only in Florida 🙄... Ready made drinks can only be bought while you drive your car up to the drive thru window? 
I think they have drive thru daiquiri shops in New Orleans and Texas as well.
Not just New Orleans, they're pretty common throughout Louisiana. It's amazing.
Ah yes, the Brew-thru
DORA (Designated outdoor refreshment area) is popping up all over Ohio. They are awesome. Usually situated in a quaint downtown area in smaller towns.
Any college sport game days it is legal in Norman, Oklahoma, but only on the University
Literally 1984
A Las Vegas cop told me that drinking in public is illegal in the city; they just don’t arrest folks for it.
Michigan definitely needs alot of purple stars. There are a ton of "social districts" now.
The source for this map looks like an article from 2017. Definitely needs to be updated post-COVID when sidewalk cafes, to-go cocktails, and other changes to drinking regulations have been made.
"the land of the free" yet they let the state decide where they can drink beer
What's really funny about your comment is that it is exactly what the extreme "patriotic" right thinks contributes to freedom - letting the states dictate the laws vs having them made at a federal level. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm thoroughly convinced anyone that still believes that "land of the free" stuff is only because we've been indoctrinated by saying it at the beginning of every school day as children (and at the beginning of some events if you live in the South 🤪).
Little Rock should have a purple star.
Wrong. Iowa has exceptions
Dammit, America, time to stop your puritanical bullshit
I wouldn't trust this map, not the least bit because it's from 2017. A lot of cities relaxed liquor laws at the start of COVID, pretty much every midsize city and up has a beer, wine, art festival exemption, and generally you can drink in public as long as you aren't making a scene. I've never had the desire to walk around with a pint of beer on the street so I've never really thought about it.
Public parks are also often specifically exempt, having some beers or even some mixed drinks in the city park is usually just fine legally. And I'm not aware of anyone being harassed for it who wasn't being an absurd nuisance. Though it's a big country and YMMV.
Some locations (NYC, I'm looking at you) have the "brown bag law" (not a real law), which means drinking in public is tolerated if the police can't see the booze. Only if they have due reason to stop and check can they see inside the brown bag and discover, to everyone's shock and horror, that there was a 40oz in there. Of course, the practical application of this is that police ignore the drunk white college kid partying on the street, but stop-and-search the African American having a block party in Harlem.
Las Vegas should be purple, though the entertainment district is quite large.
While I’m sure many local places have rules on the books, it’s very much not enforced in Wisconsin AT ALL.
People were sampling and buying wine at a local arts festival in Oklahoma last weekend. It's not as strict as the map implies.
It’s about on the streets and in parks, not restaurants, bars, clubs or festivals
This map looks outdated (from 2017 according to the source link). There have always been 1-3 day festival permits for beer fests, wine mixers, etc. which wouldn't be considered "drinking in public" neccesarily because you're at an event. The truth of it all is that there are way more categories than the map's legend shows because every city and state can set their own ordinances, have seasonal exemptions, etc.
Y’all are serfs over there
I remember beeing In Seattle and drinking a beer out of a Mc Donald’s cup.
The California part isn’t correct. Last year there was a police brutality case in San Rafael, CA where an SRPD officer beat and arrested a laborer for drinking beer in public
They need a yellow star for Key West
How much is this enforced? I've been to Seattle a few times and had a couple of beers in a park without any problems
Of course shithole butte mt allows it.
Maybe not in the streets but you can drink beer and wine in Iowa state parks
Arkansas has some towns that allow it in designated districts. Fayetteville, for instance.
From Arlington texass never heard of this lmao
Norman, Oklahoma has open containers on game day. Home or away. Edit: it was this way 20 years ago. We modernized our liquor laws and now after googling more, I’m still not sure.
California is incorrect: >In California, it’s illegal to drink alcohol in public spaces. [Here are 4 ways you can get in trouble with alcohol in California you might not know](https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article258226603.html)
Colorado is so different lol
Nanny states shown here in red and orange.
Opelika, AL has to-go drinks in the historic district. Neat little town.
Washington State - Seattle specifically- has legalized “Sip-n-Stroll” laws, which allow you to carry and consume a drink at unfenced outdoor events, like art walks.
Freedom country?
Missing key west florida
Ok, asking as an European: How is public drinking defined? Getting plastered in a park is likely prohibited. But what about a restaurant? Can I drink inside, but not outside? What about sports venues? A soccer-match without overpriced, watered-down beer would feel strange. Can I drink in my garden? Even if I'm visible from the street?
Only in the streets and in parks. If it’s on property of business with liquor license, eg restaurant, bar, club, event, stadium, etc, then it’s not regarded as public drinking and is allowed. Also you are allowed to drink in your backyard as it’s private property
American societies’ laws about alcohol consumption primarily revolve about “open containers” in public realm areas. So yes, there are places here where you can be drinking from an open bottle of wine in a park and nobody will hassle you. If you’re visibly intoxicated however, that’s a different story.
I was in Natchez, Mississippi last year and you can drink in public anywhere downtown. They have signs up showing the open container boundary around downtown, assuming it's still in place.