Paris Alcohol Laws
 

HI-
i am going back to paris this fall with my boyfriend and would like to know what the laws are regarding drinking in public. We like to picnic and wonder if a bottle of wine can be included in our basket.

Of course. A picnic w/o wine is a sin :)

Wine with your picnic will be fine.
What stumped us last year was that a bottle of wine purchased at the hotel bar was not allowed to be taken outside to their tables facing the sidewalk.
We were allowed to fill our glasses at the bar,then take them outdoors. Why?

Hi K,

You will be all right as long as you a) aren't loudly drink and b) clean up your trash.

((I))

Only in the US is the act of having alcohol in a public place forbidden. In Europe, it's not the drinking that can get you in trouble, it's the behavior. 16-year olds can drink legally (in Switzerland I know it for a fact), but hardly anyone ever "cards" them, but if they misbehave they're out on their ear, just like anyone else stays at the discretion of the hosts according to their behavior.

Tod - you may have incurred the wrath of the three-tier system: Cheapest prices standing up at the counter, second-cheapest sitting down inside, most expensive sitting down outside. And buying at the counter and then going outside to sit down is a big no-no.

Maybe a waiter, rather than getting into a scene, compromised by letting you take a glass outside, thinking you'd be gone sooner than if you sat there to finish a bottle?

Or some house rule about bottles that can topple and fall and break on a crowded terrace?

WK

It's hard to say what the deal was with tod, but buying a bottle of wine at a bar and then expecting to go to a different area with tables on the terrace with it is usually completely unacceptable. I would have thought he'd just say you couldn't do that, unless there were some language problems.

There is no national law saying you can't drink in public in the US, you can in some places, it's generally up to local law. And you can drink in many public places. Public parks are a special case of "public places". Many communities do have laws against it because of problems with violence, crime, etc. I used to live in California, and it is still allowed in many state parks and beaches, but that's just one example.

I study comparative global health policy, and I know there are other countries that don't allow that, also. I think it isn't allowed in some park and public places in the UK, for one place (like Scotland)again at a local level. It's not allowed in public parks and streets in Finland, for another.

It is certainly not true that the US is the only country in the world where you can't do that. In some countries, you can't do it at all, not just in public places (like Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, etc). In Iceland, alcohol consumption is prohibited publicly almost everywhere but restaurants. According to a 2001 WHO report on this subject, there are five European countries alone that ban it completely in parks and streets, for example.

Madrid passed an open bottle law this year. My daughter said the university students in Madrid held several protests about it.

In Paris it is very common to see the homeless people drinking wine on street benches in the Latin Quarter and in Metro stations. Bring your wine, and don't forget the glasses and the corkscrew.

tod was given a pass on the glass by an unusually friendly hotel bar keeper. If you want to know the reason why you can't buy at the bar and take it to a terrace table just order at the terrace table. $$Yikes$$.

The Scandinavian countries are very uptight and paranoid about alcohol, and charge outrageously for it. Strict big brother alcohol laws are not unique to the USA.

Supposedly it is not legal to drink in public (according to other posters) but that it is an accepted practice as long as you aren't causing a problem or scene. We've had the local law walk right by us, eye our wine bottle, and not break their stride one bit.

US is not the only one. In Canada, some provinces are similar in laws.

On the same subject, if one person orders a bottle of wine for some reason rather than a glass or a carafe, can one request to take the bottle away at the end of the dinner, or is it just expected to finish it at the table, or don't finish at all, and thus leaving a semi-full bottle behind?

It seems to me I read about a year or so ago that restaurant patrons in France could take a bottle of wine from the restaurant if they hadn't finished it at the restaurant. It seems as though this was so restaurant patrons wouldn't sit and finish the bottle at the restaurant and then drive their car intoxicated.

But I am not saying this is for sure..but I do think that I read that somewhere. CNN or USA travel perhaps.

" It's not allowed in public parks and streets in Finland, for another."

Not true. Used to be like that, but changed years ago. But I do wish they would put some kind of age limit to that. I mean, I like to take a wine bottle to my picnic, but I don´t want to see a 14-year-old with his/her beer canister.

WK is just perpetuating the all too common myth that the US is "uptight" about alcohol whilst the rest of the world has some sort of healthy, open attitude towards it. this is pure fantasy. as others have stated, there are plenty of places in the US where a beer may be enjoyed in a public place and there are many places in europe where it is prohibited.

likewise, some parts of europe have problems with alcohol that cannot easily be solved by the police because they are powerless to stop nuicance people from congregating and drinking...this is common in the UK, for example.

"I think it isn't allowed in some park and public places in the UK."

Oh, I remember when we were going to have a picnic lunch in Hyde Park, London. We bought some nice food at Harrods in the food halls, some bottles of white white (properly chilled), got them uncorked in the food halls and received some high-quality plastic glasses. Believe me, we had a wonderful time!

BTW, we do this regularly in every other European country. Of course, we prefer "official" picnic places with tables and benches.

For Europeans, it is very strange to notice that EVERY picnic place we have visited in the US (in state parks, national parks etc.) has large signs forbidding to drink alcohol. (Of course, we do it, but not so obviously as in Europe.)

An interested question in public health matters: Isn't there a strong statistical correlation between the strictness of drinking laws and the percentage of alcoholics in a country?

>>>>
Isn't there a strong statistical correlation between the strictness of drinking laws and the percentage of alcoholics in a country?
>>>>>

i don't see the point....some countries have strict laws BECAUSE they have high rate of alcoholism (e.g. scandinavian countries).

UK has relatively liberal laws and cultural acceptability but has a major problem with alcohol.

The WHO report on this subject I was citing (by some British authors, Rehn et al.) was published in 2001, so perhaps Finland has changed since then but it couldn't have been that many years ago. I found news articles that Finland just passed a national public order law on 10/1/03 that partly regulates public drinking. It appears that law (which is national and was meant to override local laws) says that local authorities can allow it in parks (not all public places) if people aren't bothering others. So if it is generally allowed in parks, doesn't mean it is allowed in all public places. I presume that law is still in effect (and also regulated public prostitution). Here is a more complete description from a Helsinki newspaper or something:
http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/ne...d=20030930IE12

As for the UK, perhaps one can do it in Hyde Park, but that doesn't mean you can do it everywhere in the UK. There are local laws, and I know I've read of places that have banned it in the UK in many public places, and these weren't really old articles. Here's just one article about some of the places in Scotland
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com...m?id=646172006

In any case, saying that the US is the only place in the world that doesn't allow public alcohol consumption, as WK did, obviously isn't even believable. Surely he knows of countries like Saudi Arabia and others with very strict laws on all kinds of public behavior.

> only place in the world that doesn't allow public alcohol consumption
A similar law exists in the city of Berlin, but many don't care or even don't know about this regulation.

There is absolutely no law or decree in France that forbids alcohol in parks or on beaches or wherever. There are indeed a few municipal decrees in various cities that forbid drinking alcohol on the street, but these are always aimed at the homeless or rowdy youth and absolutely never at picnickers.
One of the favorite experiences of young people in Paris is to spend the evening on the steps of Sacré Coeur, usually with a cheap bottle of wine, a baguette, and a big slab of pâté. For those who have forgotten the wine (or need more!) there are young gypsy or Arab boys with bottles in buckets of ice for sale, allowing you to buy a 2 € bottle of wine for 5 or 10 €, depending how desperate you are. Sometimes, when you are young and in Paris, desperation can be a good thing.