Can I drink alcohol on the street?
Short answer
Assume not. There is no national rule, and the cities that do allow it regulate the container rather than the drink — New Orleans permits an open cup in the French Quarter but bans glass, which is why everyone is holding plastic.
Nobody sets this rule nationally
There is no federal law on drinking in public. It is written by cities, sometimes constrained by state law, and the default across most of the country is that an open container of alcohol on a street or sidewalk is an offence.
So the useful question is never "is it legal in the United States" but "what does this city say". Two blocks can be the boundary, and a festival can suspend the rule for a weekend.
New Orleans, read closely
The best-known exception rewards a careful reading. The city's ordinance makes it unlawful to carry an open glass container of alcohol on the streets of the French Quarter area — the prohibition names the glass, not the alcohol.
That is the whole reason bars there hand you a plastic cup on the way out. The cup is not a workaround for the law; it is the law being followed.
What to assume everywhere else
Take the drink to a licensed premises, a private space, or one of the designated entertainment districts that a handful of cities have created and signposted. Where a district exists it is marked, and the markings tell you where it ends.
The cost of guessing wrong is usually a citation rather than anything worse, but it is a citation in a country where paying it from abroad is genuinely inconvenient.
Good to know
- No national rule — cities decide, and most prohibit it
- New Orleans bans the open glass container in the French Quarter, not the drink
- Designated districts are signposted; outside them, assume prohibited
