Texas Penal Code \u00a7 49.02<\/a>, a person commits public intoxication if they appear in a public place while intoxicated to the extent they may endanger themselves or others. Simply drinking alcohol in public is not a crime where public consumption is allowed.<\/p>\nPeople may legally consume alcohol at permitted outdoor events, festivals and in areas where public drinking is permitted.<\/p>\n
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If you buy a drink from a Sixth Street bar, you should finish it inside the establishment or on its licensed patio before stepping onto a public sidewalk or street.<\/p>\n
Where can you drink in public in Austin?<\/p>\n
According to a 2020 city memorandum, Austin has six designated areas where drinking alcohol on public streets, roadways and sidewalks is prohibited.<\/p>\n
Those zones include downtown, an area east of Interstate 35, the Drag along Guadalupe Street near the University of Texas, a corridor extending south from Lady Bird Lake toward Bouldin Creek, an area around East Riverside Drive and a neighborhood near Montopolis.<\/p>\n
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The downtown zone encompasses much of the city’s entertainment district, including Sixth Street, making it generally illegal to consume alcohol on its public sidewalks during a typical night out.<\/p>\n
The memorandum says residents in downtown, South Congress and the UT area supported restricting public alcohol consumption because of concerns about alcohol-related crime and violence.<\/p>\n
When similar restrictions were enacted in a historically Black and Hispanic East Austin neighborhood, however, they prompted concerns from residents.<\/p>\n
According to KUT, Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, who represents much of East Austin, called the policies discriminatory.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is another example of how some of these inequities can be hidden in policies and practices that most of us don\u2019t even know exist,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Public drinking citations in Austin<\/p>\n
Police data show the ordinance has been enforced far less frequently in recent years.<\/p>\n
Austin police issued 571 citations for public alcohol consumption in designated no-consumption zones in 2015. By 2019, that number had fallen to six citations.<\/p>\n
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Below is a map of citations in Austin for public alcohol consumption prior to the city changing the ordinance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How much is the fine for public intoxication in Texas?<\/p>\n
Public intoxication is a Class C misdemeanor under Texas law and carries a maximum fine of $500. The offense does not include mandatory jail time.<\/p>\n
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A conviction becomes part of a person’s criminal record and may affect future employment, housing opportunities and professional licensing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2020, the Austin City Council approved an ordinance that removes unequal restrictions on public alcohol consumption in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,85656],"class_list":["post-358457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-marley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}