Drinking Outside: To Ticket Or Not To Ticket?

We received the following email from a reader on Wednesday night:

I saw your post about the Saturday 9/27 incident of teenagers beating each other up on 6th Ave between 10th and 12th streets. I live right there so was concerned. When I came home tonight and stopped at the bodega on 6th and 10th, there was a police car with lights flashing parked cattycorner to the bodega, and the lady behind the counter explained that one of the bodega guys was just ticketed for drinking a beer outside. This makes my blood boil. That bodega has been in this neighborhood for over twenty years and the guys who sit outside it are our eyes on the streets. How dare the cops ticket someone just drinking a beer when they were absent from a much more violent indicent so recently??

The controversy over enjoying a beer outside is nothing new. If we’re looking to get all technical, it is illegal to drink on the sidewalk, but are situations like this really a problem? Should street drinkers receive tickets, or is it unnecessary when we’ve got some seriously intense crimes occurring around the Slope?

Photo via inlahmansterms