Hanover County, VA Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Section 17-4 of the county's miscellaneous offenses chapter does not ban carrying or drinking an open container on its own; it targets the state of being intoxicated in a public place, and covers intoxication from alcohol, a narcotic drug, or any other intoxicant or drug of whatever nature, not alcohol alone. A conviction is a class 4 misdemeanor, the lowest misdemeanor class Virginia recognizes, which under the general penalty provision at section 1-11 caps the fine well below the levels attached to higher misdemeanor classes elsewhere in the code.

The section gives a law-enforcement officer an alternative to arrest: in any area where a court-approved detoxification center is located, the officer may authorize transporting the intoxicated person, by police vehicle or otherwise, to that center instead of charging them. That alternative comes with a limit built into the same sentence: the code specifies that no person may be involuntarily detained at the detoxification center, so the diversion is not itself a form of custody. Because section 17-4 sits in chapter 17, Offenses, Miscellaneous, rather than in an alcoholic beverage licensing or zoning chapter, it is the Sheriff's Office, not the Commissioner of Revenue or ABC licensing staff, that handles enforcement in the field, in Hanover County outside the Town of Ashland.