Yolo County, CA Public Conduct: Public Alcohol Use (2026)

02 of the Yolo County Code makes it unlawful to drink beer, wine, or any other alcoholic beverage, or to possess an open alcoholic beverage container, on any public parking lot, on any private parking lot held open to the public, on any public street, sidewalk, alley, or walkway, or in any place held open to the public within 250 feet of any establishment that sells alcoholic beverages. The 250-foot buffer means the ban follows bars, liquor stores, and markets with alcohol licenses outward into the surrounding sidewalk and parking areas, not just the storefront itself.

The ordinance carves out one specific exception: public parking lots adjoining a public park where drinking is permitted are not covered, so a county park that allows alcohol under its own rules is not automatically swept into the ban through an adjoining lot. Subsection (b) also clarifies the ordinance does not narrow any stricter prohibition already found in California law: the local rule does not excuse conduct that state law separately makes illegal. The section was adopted as Section 1 of Ordinance No. 1063, effective December 3, 1987, and sits in Title 5, Chapter 4 alongside the county's inhalant-abuse provisions, reflecting its origin as a public-order and nuisance-control measure for unincorporated commercial corridors and roadside areas outside city limits.