Suds on the Stoop: Summer Tradition or Crime? [POLL]

Sipping suds on one's stoop is practically a Brooklyn rite of passage. But is it a crime?

Brooklyn Law School student Andrew Rausa told the New York Times about a set of summonses police recently slapped on him and his friends for drinking in public—public, in the case, being the stoop of a Boerum Hill brownstone, which was separated from the street by a wrought-iron gate.

Rausa pointed to the New York Administrative code, which defines a public place as one “to which the public or a substantial group of persons has access, including, but not limited to,” a park, sidewalk or beach. Exceptions include drinking at a block party or “similar function for which a permit has been obtained” or places with liquor licenses.

But the police were not impressed. "I don’t care what the law says, you’re getting a summons,” the cops told Rausa. 

Kimber VanRy, a Windsor Terrace resident and the subject of a 2008 Times article on the same subject, has been fighting for stoop-drinking justice for years.

“There’s so much interpretation left up to the individual officer,” he said. “I tell people, honestly, I think you’re going to lose because it’s written so broadly.”

What do you think? Is sipping a drink on your steps a crime? Tell us in the comments.