My Mother-in-Law warned me the other day that if I put three bottles of Sam Adams in my car, I’d be in violation of Texas’s open container statute and I could get a ticket. She heard this from a friend of a friend…
I doubt this is correct. But out of curiosity I emailed a municipal court prosecutor. Unfortunately the prosecutor sent back a form email saying they can’t comment on legal issues in the abstract.
Here’s the statute:
I suppose “receptacle” there at the beginning could be interpreted as referring to a boxed 12 or 24 pack rather than to an individual container of liquid. (I’d have a harder time believing the word could be interpreted to refer to six packs of cans.) And even then, if I’ve just got individual bottles in my car, and no box that might have contained them, then where’s the “open container”?
But does anyone know whether it is in fact usual for the statute (or similar ones in other states) to be interpreted this way?
I am a Texas resident and although I have known a few who have been ticketed for open container, I have never heard of any body getting a ticket for having a sealed container that at one point was part of a set of sealed containers because they in fact still have an ummm…sealed container that you can’t drink from.
IANAL, but if you look at (1) I believe the “receptacle” term was thrown in there not to mean the packaging that beer bottles come in, but for all the different ways that alcohol can be sealed and transported (box wine, mini-keg- whatever).
“(1) “Open container” means a bottle, can, or other
receptacle that contains any amount of alcoholic beverage and that
is open, that has been opened, that has a broken seal, or the
contents of which are partially removed.”
Key word here is “OPEN”. You can 1, 2, 3 or 11000 bottles lying in your front seat, back seat, trunk, tapped to the hood or sticking out of your engine compartment as long as they are not OPEN. If they are empty then you are cool as well.
The other key here is if you are driving erratically, smell of alcohol or appear otherwise intoxicated. If you do, then that combined with the containers gives him probable cause to give you a sobriety test and possibly charge you with a DUI. If you have not been drinking, then you have not broke a single law by simply carrying a couple sealed (or completely empty) bottles of booze on your front seat. Just tell the officer that you are saving them for your destination.
I am not a lawyer but the statue reads pretty easily.
edit: let me add that this does not mean there is another Texas statute that reads “You may not have 3 bottles of Sam Adams in your vehicle at any time”. There can be a thousand different laws, hidden in a million different codes and statutes and your best bet for an authoritative answer is to ask a cop, next time you see one. However, as far as the statute you quoted above is concerned, I stand by my comments.
I know someone who was given a ticket for underage drinking back when we were all like 18 or 19 or something… He was returning bottles. Obviously, he wasn’t 10 and wearing a cub scout uniform so the cops stopped him carrying 5 cases of 24 pack bottles back into the Price Chopper that he was walking across the parking lot of. I’m not saying he was smart, he could’ve just gone to a bottle redemption place, but still… Not exactly like he’s chugging a beer out of a funnel screaming “WoooHoooo!!” in the street at 3 a.m.
Cops did let them return the bottles… but not before giving them a ticket.
Reason? Cop picked up a few and poured out the few drops, and in one, about two or three sips.
He said he was going to contest it but I don’t recall talking to him about it again… Wasn’t exactly someone I saw often enough.
OK, I’m a cop and I think that’s a chickenshit charge. He should have fought it.
As to the OP, I’m in Washington and you’d be safe. I think the intent of the law is clear - it’s to prevent you from drinking alcohol while driving. Having part of a six-pack, with the bottle still sealed, shouldn’t be a problem.
When I was living in Texas, there was a drive through frozen alcoholic beverage store right next to one of the lingerie model shops in a soldiery part of town. Drinks were served in large, 32 oz., foam cups with normal soda cup lids such as those used at any fast food restaurant. They gave you a straw separately. The thing that apparently kept them legal, though, was the use of red seal tape across the straw opening and across the union of cup and lid. This was the same type of tape used for urine sample tests. The cops could be kind of pricks, but they never bothered the store nor its customers.
Recently here in Michigan legislation was passed allowing the use of seals on partially consumed wine bottles purchased in restaurants.
How is an empty bottle not open? The law would be useless if you could just slam your beer as soon as you see a cop, throwing the empty container on the floorboard.
No, it means a container that has (or had) booze in it. A cup or a flask are two examples.
No, the law is quite clear: " … receptacle that contains any amount of alcoholic beverage and that is open, that has been opened, that has a broken seal, or the
contents of which are partially removed."
An empty container does not contain “any amount” of liquid.
I remember back when I lived in Texas in the mid-1980’s and IIRC, Texas was one of the last states that actually still allowed you to have an open container in your vehicle, assuming of course, you weren’t drunk.
Great idea! So you don’t down that last two glasses that you shouldn’t because you don’t want to drive home with it and risk getting caught.
Terrifying idea! Especially if, as you say, the cops just didn’t really bother the place. I wouldn’t want to live within 50 miles of that place, especially because I walk lots.
And FoieGrasIsEvil… That’s even worse than the sippy straw cup idea… I’m kinda speechless…
The legal definition is probably one that does not contain “any amount” of liquid. For somebody who’s drinking (even soda), empty means there’s not another drink left in it, even thought you can almost certainly still get a few drops out unless it’s been there a few days.
Zero is an amount. Seriously, though, as clayton_e’s example shows, an “empty” can is likely to contain a few drops, particularly if it’s newly emptied.
On a different topic, my recollection is that Virginia still permits a passenger to have an open container. Every now and then, there’s an effort to make that illegal too, but thus far it hasn’t passed.
And I think there may still be one state where it’s legal to drink alcohol while driving, as long as you’re not above the legal limit.
Does Mississippi have statistically higher rates of alcohol related vehicle crashes? And if it’s an accident, is it just labeled an accident with who’s at fault and what they owe in compensation or do you get some sort of punishment for causing the accident while being drunk (or, to put it in a more moderate and likely situation, obviously buzzed but not stumbling around stupid but still causing an accident).
Google isn’t giving me much…
And if the statistics are hazy… Is that because they don’t document it in a standardized way because it’s not illegal to do? (For example, try to find statistics on jaywalking, which is actually illegal, in a town of 20,000 people or so… There could’ve been fifty arrests in a set period of time or one… but you’re not going to find out through google).