Bristol Township, PA Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Chapter 53 of the Bristol Township Code, adopted by the Board of Commissioners (now Township Council) as Ord. No. 1044, creates two separate offenses. Section 53-2 makes it unlawful within the Township for any person to drink liquor or malt or brewed beverages on a public street or public sidewalk, public park, playground, greenbelt, public lot, private parking lot open to public use, school yard or school parking lot, or in any vehicle being operated or parked there. Section 53-3 uses the same list of places but targets possession: no one can hold an open container of liquor or malt or brewed beverages, or have one in a vehicle under that person's control. Ord. No. 92-17 amended both sections on 10-20-1992.

The definitions in § 53-1 decide what counts. Liquor covers any alcoholic, spirituous, vinous or fermented beverage containing more than 1/2 of 1% of alcohol by volume, and malt or brewed beverages cover any beer, lager, ale, porter or similar fermented malt beverage at 1/2 of 1% or more. A container is any bottle, cask, keg, cup, glass, flask, thermos or other receptacle capable of holding liquids. A container is open when a can has been perforated, a cap has been loosened, a cork displaced, a seal torn or mutilated, a keg tapped, or when a glass, cup, bottle, thermos or receptacle is not self-contained and vacuum sealed. A container that is self-contained and vacuum sealed falls outside that definition.

Because the private-lot language reaches any private parking lot open to public use, a shopping center or business lot is covered the same as a municipal one. School yards and school parking lots are named outright, so the ban follows the property, not the hour of day. Section 53-4 supplies the penalty for both offenses.