Grays Harbor County, WA Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Grays Harbor County Code Chapter 12.12, the "park use ordinance," governs conduct at Grays Harbor County Park, the county-run park administered by the director of the county fair and pavilion department. Section 12.12.030 flatly bans consuming alcoholic beverages or possessing an open container of alcohol anywhere on park property; the chapter does not carve out a beer-garden or permitted-event exception for alcohol the way it does for concessions or reserved facility use. The ban sits alongside a short list of other park-conduct rules in the same chapter: no hunting, trapping, or injuring game in the park under Section 12.12.040, and a duty to obey posted park signs under Section 12.12.050.

Penalties for park violations are tiered under Section 12.12.120: violating the hunting or sign-posting sections is a gross misdemeanor punishable by up to a two-hundred-fifty-dollar fine or ninety days in jail, but the open-container rule falls in the second tier, drawing only a civil fine of fifty dollars payable to Grays Harbor County rather than a criminal charge. The county or the park administrator can waive sections of the chapter, including this one, for a specific organized event upon written request under Section 12.12.130, so an event permit obtained in advance is the way to get an exception to the park's alcohol ban.