Beers on the porch...

[lilpup]

Drinking beers out on the front porch is a ticketable offense in some places? Is it in Detroit but goes unenforced? [[I don't think so. It isn't illegal in Ann Arbor.) That seems absolutely absurd.

It's mentioned in this radio interview that ran in Chicago:

http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=38715

Meanwhile, TIME's local resident still sounds like he can't wait to escape his version of hell:

http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=38714

[Servite76]

Well, if it's illegal in Grosse Pointe, I'm going away for life...

[Quonset Hut]

One way the police in East Lansing harrass students drinking on the front porch is to call them over to speak with them. When the kid with a bottle or can steps on the sidewalk, which is public, the cop writes them a ticket.

[jcole]

One way the police in East Lansing harrass students drinking on the front porch is to call them over to speak with them. When the kid with a bottle or can steps on the sidewalk, which is public, the cop writes them a ticket.

If the kid had a brain, he's put down the beer before going down to talk to the cop.

[kellyroad]

If the kid had a brain, he's put down the beer before going down to talk to the cop.

Sounds like entrapment.

In Detroit during the 60 and 70s it was a time honored tradition to kick back on one's porch with a cigarette, PBR or Strohs or coffee and watch the neighborhood pass by on a warm summer night. If the beer on the porch was illegal, then Detroit had its share of criminals.

[terryh]

As long as the drinkers of intoxicants aren't lipping off with lewd and offensive comments at passersby they shouldn't be harrassed...

[gibran]

The old guys and their Stroh's...the hot summer nights with the twinkle of cigarettes flickering from the porches..walking home and hearing the Tigers on their radio..yep..would give anything to walk that neighborhood again.

[12468_laing]

totally ridiculous if this is trur. my dad, bless his heart, and I had many Strohs on the porch listening to the Tigs and just talking. people would go house to house sometimes just to visit. now, those were the days - everyone caring and wanting to visit. where has time gone?

[jcole]

Sounds like entrapment.

In Detroit during the 60 and 70s it was a time honored tradition to kick back on one's porch with a cigarette, PBR or Strohs or coffee and watch the neighborhood pass by on a warm summer night. If the beer on the porch was illegal, then Detroit had its share of criminals.

No entrapment. If the kid is legally on the porch with a beer, and the cop says 'Hey, kid, come down here, I want to talk to you' how hard would it be for the kid to put down the beer and THEN walk down the steps? This is a college kid; he should be able to figure out how to put down the drink and then walk down to street level
If the cop said 'Hey, kid, come down here and BRING THE BEER' and then ticketed him/her for open intoxicants, then I could see an argument for entrapment

[Hermod]

40s and 50s, everyone sat out on their front porch in the summer. The back yard porch was just a 3 by 3 concrete stoop for most houses. No one had a patio in back of the house. Many folks screened in their front porch to keep out the mosquitoes. Most people had a "porch glider" on their porch though some just had the all metal "lawn chairs".

Kids would play on the sidewalks [[and in the street) and the grownups would stay on their own porch and converse loudly with the next door folks and the cross street folks. The kids were watched and secure and the folks socialized. TV and backyard patios killed it

My folks didn't drink, but the neighborhood was mostly German so a lot of Pfeiffer's, Goebel, Stroh's, and E&B 103 got put away in an evening.

.

[lilpup]

totally ridiculous if this is trur. my dad, bless his heart, and I had many Strohs on the porch listening to the Tigs and just talking. people would go house to house sometimes just to visit. now, those were the days - everyone caring and wanting to visit. where has time gone?

Seriously, the guy in the interview said when he used to live in New York he couldn't sit on the porch and have a beer at the end of the day without fear of getting a ticket.

[kellyroad]

No entrapment. If the kid is legally on the porch with a beer, and the cop says 'Hey, kid, come down here, I want to talk to you' how hard would it be for the kid to put down the beer and THEN walk down the steps? This is a college kid; he should be able to figure out how to put down the drink and then walk down to street level
If the cop said 'Hey, kid, come down here and BRING THE BEER' and then ticketed him/her for open intoxicants, then I could see an argument for entrapment

I agree. I was referring to [[in an admittedly loose way) to the orignal inquiry of beer on the porch in the D and not directly to all the details in the E Lansing situation. My bad.

[Hamtragedy]

God, I hope not!

[MDoyle]

I still enjoy a beer on the porch and during the summer often stroll around the neighborhood to friends houses where they are doing the same. A friendly invite to come up have a seat and crack open a cold one. It makes the summers that much better.

[Baselinepunk]

It's illegal in Ferndale; at least that's what Mr. Piggy told me.

[EastsideAl]

I don't know if it's illegal or not in Detroit now, but certainly everyone in my neighborhood used to drink beer on the porch and even in the yard quite openly when I was younger. In those days everyone brought coolers and drank beer at barbecues and at the beach on Belle Isle too. Certainly I had more than a few Strohs while sitting out on my nice shady front porch back in the 70s and 80s.

It is definitely illegal in NYC to drink outdoors anywhere that isn't specifically licensed for it. You can and will get ticketed for it [[and it's a damned expensive ticket), or even arrested, and certainly will be if you're doing it in a park. Keep in mind that most people in NYC don't have porches, and don't live in their own homes but in rental apartments, so parks are pretty heavily used. This law wasn't enforced much for a long time, but since Giuliani came into office it has been. The dark side of "broken window" theory policing [[and the cash that can be raised by it) is just this kind of petty harassment of otherwise pretty innocuous activity.

[Ravine]

If it's OK to drink a Faygo on one's porch, it's OK to drink a beer. Any perceived difference is based on an inappropriate cultural bias against beer. It's a cold drink, fer chrissakes, and nobody is saying that it's OK to be totally wasted, absurdly loud, and generally disorderly on one's porch. [[Common courtesy and respect for one's neighbors, y'know.)

I think this Regulating Each Other's Behavior bit has gone way over the edge, in America today, and is a reflection of our deep-seated inner panic over a sense of having totally lost control of our lives and our immediate world.

[Scratch]

I always thought a porch, being part of a house, constituted private property, which should make it legal unless you're under-age or causing a disturbance. Besides, I'd think Detroit police would have much bigger fish to fry.

[Ravine]

Scratch:

All quite so, in my opinion.

As for the cops in Detroit, while their response time comes under constant [[and understandable) criticism, most of the ones I've met [[and I've "met" a few more than I really needed to meet, I'm afraid) were pretty decent fellas, and I think most of them would rather not concern themselves with girly horseshit like BDOP [[Beer Drinking On Porch) calls.
*ahem* Just not "sustainable" as a significant cause for misdemeanor citation, I would think. *cough*

[MichMatters]

Keep in mind that most people in NYC don't have porches...

Unless you live in Manhattan, NYC is largely a city of stoops and porches. In fact, NYC stoop culture is pretty famous. Just had to catch that. New Yorkers spend an awful lot of their summers on the stairs of the walk-ups and porches [[in Queens). NYC is just a nanny state gone wild.

Article:

Fighting for the Right to Drink Beer on His Stoop

[MichMatters]

If it's OK to drink a Faygo on one's porch, it's OK to drink a beer. Any perceived difference is based on an inappropriate cultural bias against beer.

While I think making drinking on one's own private property illegal, it's equally absurd to try and pretend that an intoxicating beverage is no different from one that is not. If there isn't any difference in the effect of the two drinks, I question what you are putting in your Faygo, good sir.

[Ravine]

OK, here we go again.

Of course there is a difference in the effects.
I pointedly stated:
"...nobody is saying that it's OK to be totally wasted, absurdly loud, and generally disorderly on one's porch..."

There should be no difference, to one's neighbors at large, between A) drinking beer inside of one's home and then stepping out onto one's porch to display anti-social behavior, and B) displaying anti-social behavior while drinking a Faygo on one's porch.
The only part wherein anyone else's little world is befouled is the behavioral part. If one is on one's porch and not displaying offensive behavior, then it shouldn't make a damned bit of difference what they are drinking.

Actually, I thought I had successfully conveyed that thought, in my first post, but I keep forgetting about the plethora of ESL students roaming around in this forum.

[jcole]

While I agree that drinking a beer, a 'highball' or a Faygo on ones porch should certainly be ones own business, I think when they're talking about a 'stoop' in NY, NY, they are talking about a public area in a public building. It would be like taking your Labatt's and sitting on the steps in front of the Lafayette Towers.

[Neilr]

In the Boston/Edison neighborhood [[and surrounding streets), the houses, especially on Longfellow, Edison, and Atkinson, virtually all had front porches. The Tudor and Craftsman styles ones were most likely to be covered. The Colonial Revival ones, not so likely, except for the portico area.

For the most part, except for the kitchen porch, there were not so many open back porches. Nor were there many formal patios as we know them today.

Before the advent of television, men came home from work and sat on the front porch where they could chat with neighbors and supervise the children running up and down the street. My assumption is that that's where they enjoyed their after-work beer or cocktail. And, of course, the street was shaded by the elm trees that arced over the street.

[Detroitnerd]

In New York, we used to just put the beer in a bag. The reasoning was that if the cops can't see what you're drinking, they can't get you. And it actually worked.

Drinking beer on your property should not be illegal. What's the rationale for making it illegal, anyway?