Plainfield, NJ Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

The Plainfield City Council wrote the rule as a flat prohibition with two separate acts: drinking, and possessing an open container of alcohol. Possession alone completes the offense, so a person who is not drinking but carries an open container on a street still falls inside the text. The section lists the covered places in plain terms: any street, any highway, any parking lot, and any motor vehicle not on private property. It then reaches private property too, but only where the owner has not given express consent. A guest drinking on a porch with the owner's express consent is outside the ban, while the same drink on a stranger's lot without that consent is inside it.

The section carries the history note of Ordinance MC 2017-34, adopted November 8, 2017, and traces back to R.O. 1957, 10:4-3. It sits in Chapter 10, Article 7, Offenses Against Public Morals, next to § 10:7-7, which separately bars being in a drunk or intoxicated condition in or on any public place or any place open to the public. The two sections work together: the first controls the drink and the container, the second controls the condition of the person.

Penalties come from § 10:7-14. A violation of any Article 7 provision other than the prostitution and unlawful-premises sections is punishable by a fine not to exceed $500, imprisonment for a term not exceeding ninety (90) days, or both, for each violation committed.