“Wine can be sold anywhere at the New York State Fair. Before, wine sales were restricted to certain areas of the fair, while beer could be sold and carried anywhere.” Wahoo!

The NYT followed us with a trend piece about…drinking in parks!

And as to the root of our laws, they are most likely a legacy from the Temperance movement. If they were really about the economics of misdemeanors, then other countries would have open container laws too, which as comment #1 provides evidence for, they don’t.

Unfortunately I’ve been weary of using them in a public place because of the open-liquor laws; I will say, however that they are great for winery-hosted concerts

As much as I’d like to say wine should be an exception to the open-liquor laws because us wine connoisseurs are just oh-so-classy (God I sound smug) things are the way they are until we make the effort to do something about it.

Well reasoned points.

Agreed on the distinction of criminal offenses vs civil code violations.
I guess it comes down to deciding (as a society) where the legal obstacles or regulatory devices to said offensive behaviors should be placed.

I don’t dispute that drinking wine with a picnic in the park won’t lead to a wave of these offenses, but I think it’s reasonable to expect that allowing greater freedoms of public consumption of alcohol would increase the incidence to some degree. For the most part, these offenses would be nuisances more than public threats or dangers.

An across-the-board increase (of whatever degree) of this incidence, would carry a proportionate amount of offenses/transgressions going undetected and unpunished, but they would still be nuisances to the general group. The few that would abuse the privilege would be an increased nuisance or disruption to those that do not.

The decision (as you indicate) a society must make is choosing between curtailing some personal conveniences (like wine with a picnic in the park), or tolerating an increased incidence of these nuisances.

In response to your query, I agree, to some degree, about most of those things. I would probably guess that some of these policies can be a bit too draconian, but as for the rest I would point out that some, such as urination on an individual, are crimes, while others, such as noise violations, are not, at least in most places, criminal, but are rather civil code violations, punishable by fines rather than prison sentences. Either way, I agree for the most part with these methods of controlling the public peace and welfare, punishing the acts desired to be prevented. That is far more desirable than punishing an activity that, while often related to these behaviors, usually results in none of them. Because I feel that it must honestly be admitted that far more often than not drinking does not lead to any of those behaviors. And that is how I draw an analogy between full curfew and laws against open containers. I first remind again that many places don’t have such laws and don’t seem to have any problem with their parks. That includes cities, suburbs, and small towns as I have lived in all at some time or another. But the comparison is that it is deprives all law-abiding citizens of a right that a relative few would abuse. And it really isn’t that hard to punish the few that do so.
Now, if the harm here were more grave I could see such prohibitions. For instance, I am all for gun control. I’m no outright libertarian. But I believe a balance can be found. Where something is less likely than not to lead to a crime or serious civil violation, and if it does, said violation is unlikely to truly be very severe, leave it legal. Where, as in the case of gun ownership, something is unlikely to lead to crime, BUT said crime is certain to be catastrophic, then you criminalize or highly regulate the activity.
If you are thinking that drunk driving may be the fly in the ointment of that argument, I’ve considered it, but it is not really relevant, because people are no more likely to drive to a park to drink than to anywhere else that they might drink, and in fact, in some areas, it may be far more convenient to walk to a park and have wine than to go to a bar.
Mainly though, I just think how if I wanted to go the park across the street right now and have wine I could. And I am glad that I could. And I’ll just bet that right now some couple is there having dinner, with beer or wine, and that they probably won’t commit any crimes on the way home. And if they do, if anyone does, then that is a risk I am willing to take in the name of a bit more personal freedom.

On another note, my sister lives by prospect park, its not a bad area from what I remember, and I think that they could probably get away with allowing wine to go unpunished.

That said, I also have lived in and visited a number of states and I do understand the historical roots of blue laws.

Those roots not withstanding, alcohol consumption is much more closely associated with those ancillary transgressions (above) than just being out on the sidewalk past a certain time. I think it is rash and extreme to put those two on par with each other.

Alcohol consumption in public places is prohibited (not criminalized) to prevent other behaviors. I suspect that you would agree that vandalism, a stranger urinating on your front door, disruptive and loud behavior after a certain time of night and driving under the influence are rightly criminalized.

I am by no means suggesting that allowing consumption of alcoholic beverage in public parks would lead to looting and anarchism, but society demands limits, parameters and boundaries to prevent undesirable, offensive, risky or criminal behavior – whatever its frequency or incidence.

AND, if you think that American blue law is not rooted in puritanical values, then read up, and WAKE UP. I currently live near Kansas, where bars open to the public were illegal until 1987. Seriously.

It is not puritanism, but the intent of not wasting money and other public resources on arresting, prosecuting and punishing those who commit those ancillary transgressions of public drunkenness, urination, vandalism, etc that is at the root of these laws.

Restricting people from quietly drinking wine on a blanket is the cost of also stopping people from showing up with a few cases of beer, getting obnoxious and bothering everyone else in the park.