Public alcohol consumption in a social context

[CanadaJimmy]

Recently I went to visit some friends, bringing along a bottle of red wine as a social gesture. When I arrived, it was an incredibly sunny day outside, and I suggested that we go to the nearby public park which had a lake where you can rent boats. An idea then occurred to me, how about we have some bread, cheese and wine on the boat! Great idea, until I was reminded by my friend that public consumption of alcohol in parks is a crime.

This lead me to wonder if there are any differences in how cities and states/provinces deal with alcoholic beverage consumption. I have heard in some places, you are looked at as an alcoholic if you ask for something as small as a glass of wine with your meal. I have also seen separation here in Vancouver, at the PNE outdoor exhibition, where there is a "Beer garden" where children are not permitted to enter, and Beer is only allowed to be consumed in that one place.

This is a polar opposite of what I have seen in continental Europe, where people will drink a glass of wine outside in social gatherings with lunch and dinner and with their children present.

The general consensus seems to be in North America that public alcohol consumption is frowned upon - this seems to have disadvantages, one it makes it more likely for people to drive to a bar, and increasing the likelihood of drive home drunk, and two consume alcohol only at home, limiting social interaction. It also promotes the idea that alcohol is some sort of special privileged drink (which often people then drink to excess once they can legally consume it) rather than something that is part of a mature social gathering.

Have any cities tried anything more liberal, for example, allowing beer and wine consumption in public parks as part of a picnic? Or beer at public BBQ events or festivals? Or is this just perceived as unacceptable and will never change?

[rcgplanner]

The US has a very strange mish-mash of laws when it comes to alcohol consumption, especially in public. I think a lot of it comes from this fear that someone underage would consume alcohol. That being said there are some places in the country that have more lax regulations.

Missouri has very lax and permissive alcohol laws. The law actually allows for passengers to have an open container in a moving vehicle. I remember sitting in traffic on I-435 and seeing cars full of people coming home from a Chiefs game, hanging their arm out the window with beer can in hand. It was a very strange sight. The Power and Light District in downtown Kansas City, MO allows open containers in public and St. Louis allows picnickers in public parks to consume alcohol.

Market Square in San Antonio, TX permits drinking in public as long as it is a beverage purchased on-site. Not much more refreshing then sitting outside in the sun, hearing mariachi music and drinking an ice-cold beer.

Many festivals have outdoor beer gardens that do allow alcohol consumption, although it is limited to the festival grounds. The Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, CA is a good example of this.

[jwhitty]

Just an aside, in Virginia you can get a drunk in public without having actually consumed alcohol. Just be in a public place and drop an F bomb, and you are looking at a crime of moral turpitude, which leads me to this:

I think rcgplanner is right about the kids,



there is also probably something in there about the history of prohibition in the U.S. being on the county level, making appeals to authority arguments much more politically salient. It also helps that alcohol is a legal racket with distribution tightly controlled in many markets, and an incentive to have people paying for consumption as opposed to enjoying it a lower price. So fenced in beer gardens, yes; open containers, heck no. Also, check out the state legislatures and you will see vendors and distributors holding seats of power. Put alcohol on a referendum and everyone is open to more access to booze.

[jsk1983]

The County forest preserves allow alcohol (I think I've seen signs saying no alcohol consumption within x feet of the parking lot). Chicago city parks don't allow alcohol although I've consumed plenty of beers in the parks at night and never been bothered.

[CanadaJimmy]

Thanks for the good responses! Very interesting to hear your experiences, particularly from rcgplanner - I had not heard about the more liberal liquor laws in Missouri, makes me wonder why there but not in other places.

Apparently the BC government here is planning a big overhaul of the liquor laws, so it's kind of funny I brought this up right before they announced this. I may have to forward them that St. Louis picnickers law

[DetroitPlanner]

The County forest preserves allow alcohol (I think I've seen signs saying no alcohol consumption within x feet of the parking lot). Chicago city parks don't allow alcohol although I've consumed plenty of beers in the parks at night and never been bothered.

I have had similar experiences. It has to do with the level of enforcement. A lot of the laws are only enforced to deal with the disorderly. For example during events here you can get away with walking around with a can of beer as long as you're not being a jerk. Be a jerk however and they will clamp down on you. They recently started to clamp down on consumption during the annual St. Patrick's day parade.

[paiste13]

I'm Catholic from an upper-middle class Catholic neighborhood and drinking is not frowned upon at all. In fact for the church social nights there are kegs provided for the guests. Boating is huge here and it's a given there will be drinking. Noe, men don't get drunk in front of their kids and there has never been and fighting or yelling so it's controlled but it's not looked down on.

Contrast that to the mid-south where I lived for a few years where even talking about drinking was immoral and bad. There was so much hypocrisy it drove me crazy.

Edit - I'll second the enforcement side of things. I've never been "busted" for drinking at a park but have seen plenty of others who don't act like me get busted. I think a polo shirt helps!

[mgk920]

I'm Catholic from an upper-middle class Catholic neighborhood and drinking is not frowned upon at all. In fact for the church social nights there are kegs provided for the guests. Boating is huge here and it's a given there will be drinking. Noe, men don't get drunk in front of their kids and there has never been and fighting or yelling so it's controlled but it's not looked down on.

Contrast that to the mid-south where I lived for a few years where even talking about drinking was immoral and bad. There was so much hypocrisy it drove me crazy.

Edit - I'll second the enforcement side of things. I've never been "busted" for drinking at a park but have seen plenty of others who don't act like me get busted. I think a polo shirt helps!

I agree, Catholics preach moderation, whereas some of those Protestant firebrands appear to me to have very conveniently forgotten that Martin Luther himself often extolled the virtues of good beer.

That said, I very much agree with the more European take on it - go after those who misbehave while drunk. I am not worried at all about public consumption and have believed for years that the USA's paranoiac enforcement of its very high minimum drinking age to be a dangerously counterproductive farce, driving 'underage' people into uncontrolled Prohibition-style 'speakeasies' (ie, university town house parties) and not teaching them how to properly enjoy the stuff, especially in a social setting.

More locally, Wisconsin is also relatively lax in its beverage alcohol rules. For example, since repeal of Prohibition, it as been the law in Wisconsin that a parent can legally serve his or her own children, regardless of age, in any otherwise legal setting as long as the people in charge of the setting allow it. This allows, for example, legally serving your own kids beer or wine at a family meal or gathering.

Appleton, WI has a major annual street festival in its downtown area (Octoberfest, draws perhaps over 100K every year), usually the last Saturday in September, and until a couple of years ago had used fenced temporary beer gardens. A couple of years ago that was changed to allow people with beer to wander freely throughout much of the downtown area during the festival as long as they were wearing 'proof of age' wristbands. I have heard of no problems with that change.

Milwaukee has also been actively discussing re-establishing some of the public beer gardens that were common in the city before 1920 (start of Prohibition), although I have heard little of that over the past year or so.

Mike

[illinoisplanner]

In Illinois, it seems to vary so much from municipality to municipality. It seems like at a lot of festivals, they allow drinking throughout the entire park that it's being held at, but it's usually fenced off and you have to have a wristband, and no outside alcohol is allowed. And sometimes they do the beer garden thing that's separate from the rest of the festival, which I always thought was silly. Many downtown areas with restaurants with outside seating are pretty ardent about not allowing drinking outside of the fenced-in outside seating areas. However, there are still small towns, many of which could now be considered suburbs or exurbs of Chicago (like Elburn or Maple Park), where I have gone to parades and everyone's drinking on the street and sidewalk and throughout the entire town.

I think the heavy regulations and restrictions regarding outside alcohol consumption have to do with eliminating broken bottles, littered beer cans, and people being unruly who do not know how to handle their booze, and eliminating the habitual town drunkard wandering the streets drinking out of a bottle. There's also the whole underage drinking thing. It's a lot easier for someone to pass a kid a bottle or can of something in the large expanse of the town, as opposed to a smaller, confined, more controlled setting, such as a bar or beer garden.

I do agree that a lot of alcohol laws are silly and the penalties are outrageous. I'm sure draconian alcohol laws (and their tough enforcement) is great for revenue though.

[DetroitPlanner]

I agree, Catholics preach moderation, whereas some of those Protestant firebrands appear to me to have very conveniently forgotten that Martin Luther himself often extolled the virtues of good beer.

Not so for us lower class Catholics (sons of the policemen and firemen, not the lawyers or doctors). My parish priest used to bartend at the neighborhood Irish saloon along with his brother the Bishop (not any old Bishop, he was the head of a diocese 'up north'). I can't tell you the number of times I would get a slurred call from my parents and had to be a 14 year old taxi driver because half the parish was up there stoned out of their minds!

That all ended when I was 16 and I was up there stoned out of my mind too!

Reminds me of a joke:

There are three truths in life:
Jewish people do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader
of the Christian faith.
Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store.

[michaelskis]

The City of Grand Rapids MI has events that permit people to BYOB in parks. The need to get a wristband at a table showing that they are of age to consume, but it is just a big open area. The last several events have been family movie nights. It is kind of fun to bring a few beers down, spend time with family and friends and watch a movie on a giant inflatable screen.

As for the rest of the parks, there has been a problems with people, mostly homeless people, consuming and being very intoxicated while in the park. So most of them have postings that alcoholic beverages are prohibited.

[Masswich]

Massachusetts, and New England in general, are strict about these things. Even beer gardens are a relatively new thing up here. Hell, even buying beer in a supermarket or convenience store is apparently a sin in the Bay State.

One thing I loved about moving to Maine, getting beer at the Kwik-E-Mart!

[PennPlanner]

There's no question that the American puritanism is one of the factors behind the anti-alcohol-public-consumption laws, but we too easily forget that many areas, particularly, cities, had consistent problems with drunk vagabonds up through the 1950s and the anti drinking in public laws came out partly to help combat that particular issue. Hobos/drunkards were a prominent feature in most American cities at one time and 19th and early 20th century American literature is full of such examples.

As for me, I'm fine with people sitting around outside having a friendly drink in cafes and designated areas but I don't know if I'd be happy seeing people walking down public streets with an open container. While European cities aren't as draconian it's still generally socially unacceptable to walk down a random street with an open container and it's usually only the trashier elements of society who does that. But a group getting together in a park and behaving themselves is fine.