Bowling Green, KY Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Bowling Green Code of Ordinances Sec. 9-1.06, adopted by the Board of Commissioners in Ordinance BG2016-42 (December 20, 2016) and amended by BG2018-3 (January 16, 2018), prohibits possessing an open container, drinking or consuming beer or any other alcoholic beverage in or on any playground, park, golf course, cemetery or any other area or ground maintained or owned by the City of Bowling Green. The prohibition is citywide and reaches every parcel of City-owned recreational, burial or open-space property, not just parks in the narrow sense: golf courses and cemeteries are named specifically alongside playgrounds and parks.

The single carve-out in the text is for property on which an alcoholic beverage license has been approved for that specific site; the City Manager is delegated authority under the same section to sign license applications and related documents on the City's behalf, which is how a permitted event, such as a licensed beer garden inside a City park, can legally serve alcohol on otherwise dry public land. Outside that licensed exception, carrying or consuming alcohol anywhere on the listed City property is a violation regardless of the person's age, intent, or whether anyone nearby is disturbed.

Chapter 9's general penalty section, Sec. 9-5, applies: a violation is punished by a fine not to exceed $250, and each day a violation continues is treated as a separate offense. Enforcement runs through Bowling Green Police Department officers patrolling City parks, Fountain Square and other municipal grounds.