Taunton, MA Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

Section 334-11 of the Peace and Good Order chapter, added in 1974 and amended in 1980, prohibits drinking alcoholic beverages, as defined in Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 138, § 1, while on or in any public way, any way to which the public has a right of access, any place the public may enter as an invitee or licensee, any park or playground, or private land without the consent of the owner or person in control of it. The reach is broad: it covers streets and sidewalks, parking lots open to customers, City parks and playgrounds, and even someone else's yard if the owner has not agreed to the drinking.

Subsection B directs that any alcoholic beverages used in violation be seized by police and held until the underlying charge is finally decided by the court, whether that ends in a summons, an arrest, or a dismissal. The ordinance sits in the same chapter as Taunton's disperse-on-order rule at § 334-10, its synthetic-drug ban at § 334-12, and its park and playground trespass curfew at § 334-9, all enforced as part of the City's general peace-and-order scheme. The section was amended at the time the 2010 Code was adopted, and its fine ceiling reflects that codification.

Because the definition of "alcoholic beverages" borrows directly from the Commonwealth's liquor-control statute, the same categories of beer, wine and spirits regulated at the state level are covered by this local prohibition.