Gretna, LA Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Gretna Code of Ordinances § 16-124, Public consumption of alcoholic beverages prohibited, states that no drink with an alcoholic content may be consumed on the streets, sidewalks or neutral grounds of the city, using the Louisiana term for a street median. Subsection (b) carves out a single exception: the prohibition is suspended during the carnival season on the dates the mayor and city council adopt each year, reflecting Gretna's Mardi Gras parade tradition covered elsewhere in Chapter 26. This section was added by Ord. No.

4795 on October 11, 2017, replacing whatever older public-drinking rule preceded it. 1 and carried forward by Ord. No. 4007 in January 2009; unlike § 16-124, this parking-lot rule carries no carnival-season exception, so drinking in a lot remains banned even on Mardi Gras weekends. 00 and/or imprisonment up to 60 days. Gretna Police cite violators of either section, and cases are heard in the city's Mayor's Court under Chapter 40. Read together, the two sections mean an open container is illegal essentially everywhere in the city outside a licensed premises, whether the person is standing on a public sidewalk, crossing a neutral ground, or parked in a store's lot, with the only carve-out being the mayor-and-council-set carnival dates for the public street/sidewalk/neutral-ground rule specifically.