The city’s administrative code pertaining to alcohol and the open-container law is vague, says a Brooklyn Law School student who was ticketed for kicking back with some cold beer on a Boerum Hill brownstone stoop. Andrew Rausa tells City Room his low-key group was approached by two officers who pulled up in an unmarked car on July 4 to shut down the small gathering. Even though at least one of his friends was drinking soda, Rausa says his entire posse was nonetheless issued summonses for drinking in public.
The stoop of a home is considered to be private property, he says, and now, armed with various statutes and evidence logged on his iPhone, Rausa will contest the summons and represent himself in court, to the delight of tipplers everywhere. “My issue,” he says, going full Brockovich, “is not some yuppie, I-think-I’m-above-the-law issue. It’s the fact that I brought to the attention of the police officer that he was not in the right and he was not receptive at all.” [City Room/NYT]
