Introduction
I was sitting with my friends talking, one thing lead to another and
one of my friends told me about one time were he had 3 bottles of beer
with some sandwiches for breakfast and from there he went to a park in
London and another few drinks, this was about at 1pm now. He was
drinking in a public place, i told him that he could have got into
real trouble, as my understandings goes drinking in public is a big no
no.

My question
I would like to know what's allowed in concerns to drinking in public,
coffee shops, parks even malls. I would like to know what's allowed
and what you might get into trouble for. I would like to know the laws
in both the US and Great Britain, i would like the answer to be to be
simple.

Dear sulafa-ga;

Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question. It seems that this issue has been given some new attention
in the past few years and efforts to help people to understand the
nature of the new laws have been give particular interest. As you
requested, I?ll give you the legal jargon and then summarize for you:

LEGAL:

The UK enacted the ?CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND POLICE ACT 2001? which
governs, among other things, drinking in public places. Refer to:

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND POLICE ACT 2001
Chapter 2 
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/20010016.htm

PROVISIONS FOR COMBATTING ALCOHOL-RELATED DISORDER 
Alcohol consumption in designated public places 

12 Alcohol consumption in designated public places
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/10016--c.htm#12
 
13 Designated public places
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/10016--c.htm#13
 
14 Places which are not designated public places
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/10016--c.htm#14
 
15 Effect of sections 12 to 14 on byelaws
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/10016--c.htm#15
 
16 Interpretation of sections 12 to 15
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/10016--c.htm#16

As you can see, the statues clearly prohibit drinking in public places
which are not designed for such activity, and law enforcement
officials may, at their discretion, act on such behavior within the
color of the law. However, this article from the same source?

CRIMEREDUCTION.GOV.UK
http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/alcoholorders14.htm


?goes on to say that the original intent of the act was to ??provide
local authorities with an adoptive power to restrict ANTI-SOCIAL
public drinking?? [the emphasis here is mine for the purposes of
pointing out the statute?s intent]. That implication here is that
responsible public drinking may very well be treated differently than
anti-social public drinking. Moreover, the authorities are given
discretion to determine if an act is ?anti-social? as described in
Section 13 and make their own choice to act on it if necessary:

?From 1 September [when the act became law], local authorities who
wish to place a restriction on public drinking within their area,
where this is associated with nuisance or annoyance to members of the
public, or disorder, should consider whether to make an order under
Section 13 of the Act rather than proceeding with a byelaw.?

Section 13 (see above) is the portion of the Act that defines acts
that are deemed disorderly or a nuisance.

The Legislative framework for this act can be found here:
http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/toolkits/ar020106.htm

SIMPLE SUMMARY:

In short, (and this may sound confusing but?) public drinking CAN BE
illegal in the UK depending on who is doing it, where it is taking
place and how they are behaving at the time. These three things
combined, measured against the local authorities? interpretation of
Section 13 of the Act, will determine if the act is illegal or not in
a specific jurisdiction. The law nasically gives police the leverage
they need to act when it is necessary and the discretion to refrain
from acting when it is not necessary. The best practice seems to be
for one to simply refrain from doing it, or to get a clarification
from the local authorities before assuming it is legal in a certain
area.

"CAN you be arrested for drinking in public in the UK?"

Yes.

"WILL you be arrested for drinking in public in the UK in all instances?"

Not necessarily. It depends where you are doing it and how you are
acting at the time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Now, as for the US, as you know there are 50 states, and thousands
upon thousands of legal jurisdictions if you consider the local laws
and ordnances of each and every local government. In the United States
laws can vary depending on where you happen to be and how the local
government enforces certain laws. What might be legal where we stand
at this very moment might be considered illegal just a few miles down
the road. Federal law does not normally address such matters as
conduct in terms of how one behaves publicly except where it pertains
to Federally owned properties. I personally live in a National Park
for example (where I have been in local law enforcement for more than
20 years, by the way), and in my city one side of the road is
designated government land while the other is the jurisdiction of the
municipal government. Being caught drinking alcohol on the Federal
side can land you in prison for up to 6 months, while drinking on the
municipal side, just 50 feet across the road, will only get you a
verbal warning, or in the worst case scenario, 3 hours in jail.

Such is the law throughout the United States. While many jurisdictions
frown heavily on public drinking others simply don?t seriously focus
on it for enforcement purposes. Each of the US states have laws
concerning drinking and driving, but even when it comes to an issue as
serious as this you can see in this example how widely the laws vary:

DRINKING LAWS BY STATE
http://www.drugandalcoholtests.com/drinking-laws-by-state.html

The laws pertaining to drinking in public in the United States are
much the same in that each differs from slightly to greatly from one
state to another, one county to another and one city to another. To
outline the nature and extent of each one of them throughout the
nation would be to examine each one of the hundreds of thousands of
law currently in the law books.

SIMPLE SUMMARY:

It depends on where are when you do it. Most local authorities frown
on public drinking and have the statutory power to do something about
it. Minimally they might address the issue by putting an immediate
stop to it and issuing a verbal warning (assuming the person is of age
and is not legally intoxicated). Some local authorities are more
serious about the issue and will put you in jail for a short time if
you are caught drinking in public. A handful of jurisdictions turn a
blind eye to public drinking as relatively innocuous act that doesn?t
particularly warrant their already overburdened attention as long as
it causes no trouble.

"CAN you be arrested for drinking in public in the US?"

In most places, the answer is YES...but it is not so everywhere. If
you are acting like an idiot while you are doing it of course, the
probablity is much greater.

"WILL you be arrested for drinking in public in the US in all instances?"

No. It depends on the local law.

. . . . . . . . . . 

Below you will find that I have carefully defined my search strategy
for you in the event that you need to search for more information. By
following the same type of searches that I did you may be able to
enhance the research I have provided even further. I hope you find
that that my research exceeds your expectations. If you have any
questions about my research please post a clarification request prior
to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating and your final
comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near
future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad ? Google Answers Researcher


INFORMATION SOURCES

CRIMEREDUCTION.GOV.UK
http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/alcoholorders14.htm

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND POLICE ACT 2001
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2001/20010016.htm

BYLAW BANNING PUBLIC DRINKING TO GO NATIONAL
http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/story/0,8150,417433,00.html

BYELAWS - DRINKING IN PUBLIC PLACES
http://www.tameside.gov.uk/corpgen1/byelaws.htm

DRINKING LAWS BY STATE
http://www.drugandalcoholtests.com/drinking-laws-by-state.html


SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINES USED:

Google ://www.google.com




SEARCH TERMS USED:

PUBLIC DRINKING, DRINKING IN PUBLIC, LAWS, ORDNANCES, REGULATIONS, US,
UK, BY STATE, ALCOHOL

Great answer, thank you

sulafa,

I can say with utter certainty that the US laws vary greatly depending
on what state and city you are 'drinking in public' in...

For instance, I lived in Las Vegas for 6 years.  It's illegal, however
the cops turn a blind eye, to nearly all public drinking, especially
if it's done in a plastic cup....  and I can only wonder what the
penalty would be in Salt Lake City, Utah, the heart of the Mormon
state.  In case you don't know, Mormons are not allowed to drink,
period...

As far as I can remember in Britain one can drink anywhere in public
as long as you are not being drunk and disorderly... just walk through
any UK town centre on a Friday night and see how disorderly you
actually have to be before you get into any trouble. You can buy booze
as long as you are over 18 although all teenagers will know the one
shop where they can get it easily! Its a bit of a myth that its
illegal to drink at all when you are under 18, its just you can't but
it, although the piggies might confiscate it if they think you are
endangering yourself or others.

Your rught rai130-ga, i have heard and seen many teens below 18
drinking in the UK, a few of my friends studyed in London and they DO
know a lot of underaged people drinking and a few of them even did it.
I just wanted to make sure on the law side of things.