In New Orleans, it’s authorized to stroll outdoors whereas holding an open container of alcohol. Because of this drinkers on Bourbon Avenue can meander up and down the road carrying a plastic cup of their favourite beverage, stopping at takeout home windows for refills. Patrons of eating places or bars may take a cup to go, recognized regionally as a go-cup, as an alternative of chugging what’s left in a glass earlier than leaving.
At one time, eating places with drive-through home windows would promote drinks to go. A driver might purchase a drink (served in a glass or plastic cup) and drive away with it, or drink it within the automobile within the car parking zone. In 2004, the regulation was modified to ban drivers from having open containers, though passengers might have an open alcoholic beverage. That made it doable for a driver to cross his drink to a passenger if he was stopped by the police. Later, the regulation was modified to ban all open containers in automobiles. Now the previous restaurant drive-through home windows promoting drinks are gone as effectively. Drive-through daiquiri stands nonetheless exist, however since 2004 they’ll solely promote daiquiris in sealed containers.
The flexibility to have open containers open air is a crucial factor of the ingesting tradition of the town. Not solely does it appeal to the vacationer out for a large public drunk, however the regulation additionally facilitates different cultural practices, corresponding to Mardi Gras, when ingesting on the street is sort of necessary. Throughout Carnival, members of strolling golf equipment parade round city pulling rolling coolers stuffed with beer and different alcoholic drinks. Parade watchers carry picnic fare and alcoholic drinks to get pleasure from with their meal as they watch the bands and floats go by. Public ingesting additionally implies that picnics within the park or on the seawall of Lake Pontchartrain areas somewhere else causes many a touring New Orleanian to understand the customs of dwelling.
Vacationers are sometimes amazed by the drive-through daiquiri retailers. Till lately even an open container in a automobile was allowed. Within the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties a drive-up window at a restaurant was as more likely to promote a cocktail or a beer as meals. Whether or not due to the early custom of hedonism, the dearth of Puritan roots, or as a result of the town merely admits that ingesting is certainly one of its traditionally authorized pleasures, ingesting in public just isn’t taboo. It units a tone within the metropolis. Town drinks.
Throughout parades whether or not Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, St. Joseph’s Day, Halloween, or another celebration-walkers typically carry their very own drinks. Mardi Gras walkers typically pull a wagon geared up with an ice chest stuffed with alcoholic drinks in order that there isn’t a must cease and buy such sustenance alongside the parade route.
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