More Tickets for Stoop Drinkers
Despite, or maybe because of, the publicity generated by our post a couple of weeks ago and the subsequent NY Times article, tickets for drinking on stoops continue. A tipster sent us this note: “Tuesday night, Sept. 9th, myself and three friends were ticketed $45 each for drinking three beers (one of us was not…
Despite, or maybe because of, the publicity generated by our post a couple of weeks ago and the subsequent NY Times article, tickets for drinking on stoops continue. A tipster sent us this note: “Tuesday night, Sept. 9th, myself and three friends were ticketed $45 each for drinking three beers (one of us was not actually drinking, and there were only three beers open) citing that we were visible from the street when the police drove by. Just wondering how much this has been happening lately. We all plan to contest the ruling, but wondering how much we would spend on court costs. The house on Quincy between Bedford and Nostrand [in the photo above] has a three to four foot overhang from the second floor deck, which we were under, definitely not a public place.” According to the Times piece, “The city’s open-container law prohibits anyone from drinking an alcoholic beverage, or possessing and intending to drink from an open container containing an alcoholic beverage, ‘in any public place.’ The law defines a public place as one ‘to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access, including, but not limited to,’ a sidewalk, street or park.” Access seems to be the gray word, here. A stoop is visible to the public, but accessible? What do you think? Should we fight for our right to party?
TownhouseLady, if you continue your pattern of glorifying drinking and threatening to get belligerent, we will have no choice but to insist you join us at the next Brownstoner soiree!
See what happens when you get fired up and type?
s/b…when a light bulb goes off in THEIR head.
(must be all that drinking)
Whoaaaahhhhh…Wait a minute LBalls, this is SO not a class issue.
If someone is disturbing the peace and affecting your sleep then yes, that is a problem but, a separate problem.
I am an adult, over 21, sitting on my private property, having a drink with my husband at 7:00p.m. or so in the evening after a long day. No one would even be aware we were consuming an alcoholic beverage lest the container give it away. Some of us know how to properly conduct ourselves.
And you know what? Let’s NOT take it a step forward and so forth.
Give the teens some credit. They drink in public because they can’t do it in a bar or at home. They’re certainly not doing it because they saw an adult having a drink on their stoop and all of a sudden some light bulb went off in my head.
“Still no one has answered my question as to why these guys got $45 tickets and why the previous post was a $25 ticket.”
Hey Dave, no one here can give you a definitive answer, unless some of the posters are cops. So just walk down to your local precinct and bring the subject up with the desk officer.
Fighting these tickets, which I agree should never be issued, comes down more to a practical question than a legal one. I’d bet that with the proper research and court challenges, we could prevail here (I haven’t researched how the courts have interpreted the definition of “public place” yet, though). The problem is cost and procedure. Your first “hearing” will be in the summons part of the NYC Criminal Court, which is not exactly the highest court in the land. At this hearing there will be a retired judge who is now sitting as a hearing officer (“JHO”), and who acts as the prosecutor as well as the judge (these offenses are so minor that the system did away with having ADA’s appear initially). This JHO won’t care about consitutional challenges. He may agree with the argument that these areas were not public places, in which case you will win and that’s that (no precedent will be formed, and your satisfaction will be singular). If he disagrees, then your options are: 1) pay some paltry fine, or 2) come back to court (perhaps 2 or 3 more times) for a “trial.” You may still win an individual victory eventually at trial. If you don’t, then you have to get into the appellate process, which is limited for such minor offenses but still requires legally briefing issues. All the while you are paying attorney’s fees.
So, once again we see that “the system” is not geared towards determining right or wrong, but rather to accomodating those with financial resources to litigate. This is why very few lawsuits proceed on “principle.” If anyone out there wants to bankroll the ole’ Brooklyn Boozing Ticket defense, I can certainly recommend someone to help.
dave you are correct in saying that my problem is different, however as also pointed out by itsages this whole thing brings up class issues, in that it will be percieved as unfair (and to a certain degree would be) if we ticket only the “degenerates” who abuse the lee-way given to those considerably less disturbing (your couple drinking wine).
It’s a thin line between penalizing those who are a nuisance and racial profiling.
And i kid you not, all it takes is two half-deaf (machine shop workers) guys drinking to make it near impossible to get to sleep.
Apartments over restraunts/bars tend to have greatly reduced rents as compensation for the distrubance, and those premises CAN and HAVE been ticketed when they dont adequately control their clientelle.
My point is, it does suck we cant all be drinking on our stoops (quietly) without being harassed, but in a mega condensed area like NY, your behavior has an effect on others when in plain view (as a stoop clearly is), it creates an atmosphere that such behavior is acceptable (and it may be), which then lets the next guy take it one step further… and so forth… until you have a problem (not to mention when people openly drink outside, teen-agers will inevitably THINK they can do the same).
It just accelerates.
–LionBalls
Townhouse Lady sounds like a lot of fun Biff. I think we should all get together on someone’s stoop for a night of drinking and see if we get our pics in brownstoner the next day in violation of the stoop law.
Still no one has answered my question as to why these guys got $45 tickets and why the previous post was a $25 ticket.
I think I’ll name my new dog Hooch…yeah, Hooch Hound.
“The law defines a public place as one ‘to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access, including, but not limited to,’ a sidewalk, street or park.”
I guess I’m going to have to install a large security gate around my house with a buzzer/intercom system so as to clearly indicate that my stoop is NOT accessible and if you go beyond that point you are in fact trespassing.
I will then perch on the top step of my stoop (perhaps with a pitbull- in order to additionally secure my property) and get loaded and subsequently belligerent.
Won’t that improve the “look” of the neighborhood.