Clifton, NJ Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Article II of Chapter 137, Alcoholic Beverages, was adopted in 1979 and last amended in 2015 to consolidate the City's open-container and public-drinking rules into § 137-24. The section reaches beyond streets and sidewalks to cover public squares, public parks, municipal parking lots, public playgrounds, public schools, public recreation areas and fields, and municipal buildings and their surrounding grounds, and it bars not just drinking but knowingly serving or dispensing alcohol in those places. Two related sections were repealed by the same 2015 ordinance (No.

7207-15): former § 137-23, which had defined terms for the article, and former § 137-25, which had separately made possession of an open container a violation on its own. Section 137-26 supplies the sole exception: a special permit issued jointly by the Municipal Council and the State Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, limited to specific functions, specific areas and specific hours stated on the permit, such as a block party or festival that wants to allow drinking in a public space. Penalties for the article were consolidated into Chapter 137's Article IV, Violations, adopted in 2005, rather than kept section by section, so § 137-24 itself carries no separate penalty clause; § 137-29 supplies it for the whole chapter.