Mountain View, CA Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

70(a) prohibits drinking or consuming any alcoholic beverage on any public street, highway, sidewalk, median strip, park, parking lot or other public property. Subsection (b) extends the same ban onto private property that the public uses, covering private sidewalks, building aprons and parking lots open to the public, so a strip-mall parking lot or a private walkway fronting a business is treated the same as a public sidewalk. Subsection (c) then carves out three exceptions: consumption in a public park or parking area if otherwise permitted elsewhere in the code; consumption under a permit allowing alcohol sales to a downtown or other-area vendor, or under a special-event alcohol permit; and situations already covered by state law, specifically California Vehicle Code Sections 23222 and 23223 on open containers in a vehicle on a highway, and Business and Professions Code Section 25662 on minors under 21 possessing alcohol on a public street or in a public place.

The ordinance has been amended twice since its 1991 adoption under Ord. No. 91, first by Ord. No. 97 in 1997 and again by Ord. No. 05 in 2005, without changing its core two-part public/quasi-public drinking ban. A related section, Sec. 71, requires any alcohol retailer who twice violates sale-to-minors or other chapter provisions within 36 months to obtain a conditional use permit from the zoning administrator or stop selling alcohol, adding a business-side enforcement layer on top of the individual drinking ban.