How come in movies, whenever people are drinking an alcoholic beverage outside, they have it wrapped in a brown paper bag?
Drinking out of a brown paper bag is a response to open container laws that prohibit alcohol consumption in public. The idea is that the cops can’t tell that you’re drinking alcohol if the bottle is hidden inside a paper bag. Cops aren’t usually that easily fooled, which is why the brown paper bag is more of a symbol used in movies than something that you see IRL, although near my neighborhood where there are a lot of liquor stores, you will occasionally see someone drinking from a brown paper bag.
Whether the cop is fooled or not convenience stores and liquor stores in the USA absolutely do offer paper bags to put single containers of booze in, I’ve seen it and it was commonplace.
Seeing as how being intoxicated in public is also illegal(with no definition of the term) it really doesn’t matter anyway since if the cops wants to arrest you you will be.
I get Welch’s Sparkling Grape Juice sometimes, and they even put that in a brown bag here.
If a person is walking down the street with a half-empty bottle of alcohol in his hand, pretty much everyone is going to know that he’s drinking in public even if they don’t actually see him drinking out of the bottle. If that same person is walking down the street with a brown paper bag in his hand, nobody is going to know there’s a half-empty bottle of alcohol inside of the bag.
Many places normally places alcohol in bags, both corner stores and fancy liquor stores. It is automatic unless you explicitly object, in my experience. Some of it also seems to involve modesty, as if your neighbors can’t tell that you are bringing home a handle for the third time this week. But many of these places aren’t the type to offer walk-off consumption, and it isn’t always assumed public consumption follows. Of course in the seedy corner store it may be a fringe benefit for when you head to the alley behind the Greyhound.
Ah, Methodist champagne.
There are some municipalities where putting alcohol in bags is the law, although places where liquor store clerks think this is the case are a lot more common than places where it actually is.
The Wire has a great explanation of the brown paper bag. Major Colvin talks about the long ago day when Baltimore passed a law making it illegal to drink in public, on the streets. In neighborhoods like the Western District where he’s the commander, lots of people were too poor to drink in bars and they kept drinking on the streets.
The police had to arrest people they saw drinking or they opened to door to disrespect, but there were so many people breaking the law that it was tying up their time and resources to do real police work. The brown paper bag was the compromise. It gave the police plausible deniability to look the other way over a crime that was going to continue happening, regardless of enforcement.
“That small, wrinkled-ass paper bag allowed the corner boys to have their drink in peace, and gave us permission to go. and do. police work…the kind of police work that’s actually worth the effort.”
He tells the story as a prelude to going against department policies on drug enforcement and sanctioning “free zones” (the most notable getting the nickname “Hamsterdam”) in abandoned areas throughout his district where the police agree to look the other way while dealers sell drugs. He reinforces this with extremely strict punishment on anyone caught dealing outside of the free zones.
I won’t spoil the results, but it was an interesting story arc in a great television series. Obviously, The Wire isn’t a documentary, but its fictional explanation of the brown paper bag is eminently plausible.
In movies, it’s because they probably are drinking tea of cola instead of alcohol.
Everyone else answered why otherwise.
What, you don’t think that booze clerks are the executive branch? But no I don’t think it’s normally a legal thing. But like California breweries being protective of their growlers despite no law behind it, I wouldn’t be surprised if some think that they are following the law.
What’s the legal situation if I disguise my public consumption of alcohol, for instance by drinking vodka from a water bottle, assuming that I’m not showing signs of drunkenness?
For outdoor concerts we always take Lipton diet green tea bottles. We drink about a third of the tea, then fill with vodka. It’s all about discretion.
The legal situation is that you would still be breaking the law. The practical situation is that the cops won’t give a shit if you’re not being a drunken asshole and causing a disturbance. It’s pretty much the same situation as the brown paper bag, but a bit more discreet.
Or by mixing vodka into a Gatorade bottle like no one has ever figured out before?
As Jake Jones said, no one will give a shit until you start acting like a drunken asshole.
Then it’s a drunk in public or nuisance charge.
Go for it, and see where that fine line is drawn…
Awesome. This has always been my armchair theory and I haven’t even seen that episode of The Wire.
I’ve always heard, and said, “Jewish champaign: seltzer.”
Yeah, but they’re just doing that so people won’t give them grief about their interracial marriages.
If by concert, you mean major festivals and not an evening in the park with local bands, then they usually check the seal before you go in, or are at least supposed to. That said, it is pretty easy to fill a bottle with whatever you want while maintaining the seal, if you know how (and not by using a syringe or any way tedious).
They don’t mind booze though? Even if Jewish sacramental wine is not exactly fancy.
But it is used in Methodist churches, and Welch’s was invented for sacramental purposes (Wesleyan, but close enough and who’s counting?).
Are you at all willing to provide further detail? I’m not planning to try to smuggle alcohol anywhere (I don’t use it in the first place), but am trying to figure out getting something like food coloring into a bait bottle of some dark soda to bust the breakroom bandit.
I thought Wesleyan was the same thing as Methodist?