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Video: Close Encounters Above Central Park?
The NY Times delved into the legalities of public drinking during this hot and hedonistic summer season. Is it illegal? Yes. But they do note that "in the summer of 2003, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg suggested that drinking wine at concerts in Central Park was O.K. At Bryant Park on July 7, a security guard said he turned a blind eye to booze on movie nights, 'so long as it is covered, like in a bag.'" Some outdoor revelers really do set up shop in the parks: One man described his elaborate makeshift bar that includes 12 bags of frozen mix, light, dark and coconut rums, 20 blankets, and a potato masher for mixing. Gonna need more than a brown paper bag to conceal that set-up!
Barefoot and Boozing in the Park
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One man described his elaborate makeshift bar that includes 12 bags of frozen mix, light, dark and coconut rums, 20 blankets, and a potato masher for mixing.
Wouldn't it be easier to stay home and do this? You get the impression that people like this are not there to listen to an opera, or watch a movie.
Or you get arrested. A couple years back, my family and I were enjoying a concert in Cobble Hill Park in downtown Brooklyn. Miller's Farm were playing. There were dozens and dozens of families, and dozens and dozens of open wine bottles on blankets. I was drinking a beer, discreetly in a brown paper bag. A police officer stopped me and asked for ID so he could issue a ticket for open container. I said it was laughable, and I pointed to all the open bottles. He insisted I hand him my ID, which I didn't have as we had walked to 3 blocks from our home. He was outraged that I didn't have ID and he put me in handcuffs and roughly put me in a patrol car, in front of my then 7-year old son and 5-year old daughter, both crying to see their dad in such a predicament. I was kept in a holding cell at the 76th Precinct for several hours until a representative from Bill DeBlasio's office showed up and got me released. The precinct captain came out and apologized for the officer's zealousness. The ticket was already written, so I had to take the time to appear in court. Amazingly, the judge said I was free to go as there had been an error when the ticket was written. Truth is, this was an ugly episode and they were thrilled to make this go away without too much noise. To be clear, I am a middle-aged, middle-class white guy. Perhaps wine was ok but beer was too low-brow?
The real scandal is that it's ok to drink in Bryant Park or at Opera in Central Park, etc., but the police swarm like vultures on the soccer fields in Red Hook, writing tickets to beer drinkers. There's a definite double-standard between the primarily white and primarily middle-to-upper-class drinkers and the ethnic, working-class drinkers.
If it is concealed, it is legal right? I mean, as long as the officer can't visibly see the beer/wine/whatever? Wasn't that the case with that CNN guy who got caught smoking crack in Central Park? He announced it was in his pocket, but something about the officer "bringing it into plain sight" --- what is the exact law on concealed alcohol?
#2 - wow, that's awful.
Something similarly f-ed up is police that bust you for drinking on residential front steps. Case in point, stepped out from a party to have a cigarette -- a few mild-mannered people with beers on the front steps of the party friend's apartment in Williamsburg. Everyone gets a $25 ticket and court summons for drinking on the street. How are your front steps (or your front steps) not considered part of your house/apt? Yet I see people do this all the time and police don't bother them. What actually is the law about this?
A handsome rich couple enjoying wine in a park is a "lovely dejeuner". A poor or homeless person drinking in a park is a violation of the law. We have to keep our double standards straight.
I was at the concert in Central Park on Tuesday and was trying to figure all of this out. It's silly and true. What I don't understand is how it's perfectly fine for Yankee fans and Fordham kids to get well on their way to being smashed on the Metro North but someone like r1b2 gets that much trouble for drinking a beer in a non-enclosed space where it would be very difficult to bother anyone.
I've been given a ticket outside of a gallery in chelsea when a cop asked me to come closer to his car to ask me a question.
not surprised that pigs don't give tickets in bryant park but they do in red hook. I can't even smoke a jay on my stoop without the pigs harrassing me. gotta go on my roof!