If A Man's Home Is His Castle, What's His Stoop?
MayorBob.
Posted to Legal on Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 12:49:05 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.
Kimber VanRy believes the police in Brooklyn ought to have better things to do. He doesn't have a problem with them being on patrol and available to protect law abiding citizens from assault and what not. But he believes they may have stepped over a very broad line in doing what they did to him on August 27th. Because that's the date he was handed a summons to answer up in court for drinking in a public place. He's especially torqued at the notion because the public place where he was drinking was his front stoop.
New York City's open container law (NYC administrative code Chap 10-125(2)) prohibits the consumption of alcoholic beverages in a public place. A public place is defined in the statute as:A place to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access including, but not limited to, any highway, street, road, sidewalk, parking area, shopping area, place of amusement, playground, park or beach located within the city except that the definition of a public place shall not include those premises duly licensed for the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages on the premises or within their own private property. Such public place shall also include the interior of any stationary motor vehicle which is on any highway, street, road, parking area, shopping area, playground, park or beach located within the city.
There are exceptions to the law; mostly outdoor events and establishments licensed to sell alcoholic beverages. The summons the police officer handed VanRy that night would probably only cost him (US)$25 if he shows up in court in November and pleads no contest. However, according to VanRy, something's just not right here. He doesn't think he did anything wrong and sees the whole drinking-on-your-front-stoop issue "a real gray area." The officer handing him the summons said if VanRy's coop had a gate in front of the stoop, he would have been totally okay. Part of that gray area looks like a class thing. Beer drinkers like VanRy get harassed and nailed for drinking in public while the middle to upper crust are able to imbibe wine in public without fear of getting cited. Even the Big Apple's mayor Michael Bloomberg was photographed recently with a wine in a Brooklyn park (and left without a summons).
The case law in this area is a bit mixed. On the one hand, judges have convicted people of the offense who were imbibing in an apartment lobby. Steve Wasserman of the Legal Aid Society says the law shouldn't apply to a person's property and "if you can't be arrested in your kitchen" why should you be able to be arrested on your front stoop which "may be more like your kitchen than your sidewalk?" A Columbia University law professor allows as how a person might be on his property but "be in public" at the same time.
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