Harassed by officer.

[zippitybop]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York

I wanted to know if anyone could assist me with finding the statute governing the carrying of bottles containing alcohol in public. Short backstory, where I live in New York is patrolled by a pseudo-police with the authority to write tickets and citations, but has no real power to make arrests (they need to call in the actual NYPD to book anyone). Anyway a friend of mine and I were sitting on a bench outside his house with two unopened bottles of beer (which we were planning to consume inside his house, they were in our pockets and we set them down when we sat). One of these "officers" approached us to tell us that we weren't allowed to have the bottles in public. We contested that the bottles were unopened, and therefor did not violate any sort of open container law. He then asserted simple possession was enough to violate the law. It then got ugly when we felt that this was not the case given that we were both of legal drinking age. He decided to call a car over to check our ids and was about to write us a citation when a superior officer came over and told him to not to issue it. Both my friend and I feel we were unfairly harassed by the officer and were considering filing a complaint, but we would like to find the statute and make sure we are right in this matter before pursuing it further.

 

[LSCAP]

Write down what happened, time and place, and save the notes in a safe place.

Then, FORGET ABOUT IT.
All you would be doing is “rubbing salt in an open wound.”
They’ve already been ‘embarrassed’ about not knowing the law. That is, both the officers who showed up AND the ‘pseudo-police.’

To pursue this further is childish.

Since he bothered you about the beer, it seems that the ‘pseudo-police’ are like a ‘neighborhood watch’ giving extra coverage to the neighborhood. You know, like if you're in the house drinking your beer and they see a burglary or robbery in progress, they call for the police.

 

[racer72]

Someone appears to be breaking the law and is upset about being questioned about it. It will go no where is if you pursue. No harm, no foul. Don't get you panties all bunched up about it.

 

[zippitybop]

They aren't a neighborhood watch, it's more like an auxiliary police force (kinda like mall cops except actually designated to be the primary law enforcement of a neighborhood, have some sort of affiliation with the NYPD, and not nearly as cool as Paul Blart) with about half the authority of an actual officer NYPD, and twice the hard-on to assert it. An actual NYPD officer was never involved in this incident. It was two of these officers and it was their sergeant that finally came over and told them to let us go after throughly inspecting to bottles to determine that they were still sealed. This isn't the first incident of its kind where people I know have been harassed for non-infractions and frankly they've gotten worse about it over the last year to the point where it's starting to affect the quality of life around where I live. I may or may not pursue the matter further (probably won't unless I can get together some sort of joint complaint with others who have been harassed by them), but for right now I just wanted to know if anyone could point me toward a resource or provide me with the statute that would be the law governing this incident.

Racer72,
Thank you for trolling, have a nice day. If you actually believe I broke the NYS law on the matter, then please show me where it says unconcealed possession of a sealed alcoholic beverage is against the law.