Columbia County, FL Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Columbia County's Division 2 open-container rule for public premises applies specifically inside the unincorporated area. Code § 10-131 defines alcoholic beverage broadly as any wine, wine cooler, beer, liquor or other beverage containing any quantity of alcohol, a lower threshold than the one-half of one percent standard used in the county's other alcohol articles. Code § 10-132 then prohibits consuming or possessing an alcoholic beverage in an open container, or in a resealable container whose seal has been broken, at a list of named public premises: the Mason City Recreational Area on U.S.

Highway 41 South, the Paul S. Giebeig Recreational Park, the Springville Community Center, the Lulu Community Center, the Westwind Softball Complex, and, under item (6), any other county-owned or county-maintained recreational facility, meaning the ban functions as a standing rule for county parks generally. The prohibition also reaches the right-of-way of any public street immediately adjacent to those premises, closing the obvious workaround of drinking just off the property line. Unlike the county's separate bottle-club and private-premises open-container articles, this recreational-facility ban does not require an owner to file a written request or post notices before it applies; it is a default rule the board adopted directly in 1987 (Ord. No. 87-13). Code § 10-133 sets the penalty at a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable as provided in Code § 1-10, the county's general penalty section.