The Open Container

An open container is its own offence, and it is not an OVI. It does not ask whether anyone was impaired, whether anyone drank, or whether the car moved. It asks one question: was there an opened container of beer or intoxicating liquor in a person's possession in one of the places the statute lists. Two people can be cited for the same bottle in the same car, and neither of them has been charged with drunk driving.

• §ORC 4301.62
• §ORC 4511.19

The statute is also not in the traffic code. It sits in the liquor chapter, which is why the list of places it covers is wider than a road.

• §ORC 4301.62

• In a state liquor store.
• On the premises of a permit holder not authorised for it.
• In any other public place.
• While operating or being a passenger in or on a motor vehicle on any street, highway, or other public or private property open to the public for purposes of vehicular travel or parking.
• While being in or on a stationary motor vehicle on any of those same streets, highways or properties.

• §ORC 4301.62

Consuming is a different section again. Having the opened container is 4301.62. Drinking in a motor vehicle is 4301.64, and the two carry different degrees, so the same evening can produce one citation or two depending on which the officer writes.

• §ORC 4301.62
• §ORC 4301.64
• §ORC 4301.99

The degrees are doing real work here. A minor misdemeanour carries no jail and a fine ceiling of one hundred and fifty dollars, and the citation rule in 2935.26 reaches it, so an officer otherwise authorised to arrest issues a citation instead unless one of that section's exceptions applies. A fourth degree misdemeanour is a jailable offence, which puts it in a different category entirely.

• §ORC 4301.99
• §ORC 2935.26
• §ORC 2929.24
• §ORC 2929.28

There are written exceptions, and they are narrower than the stories about them. A passenger in a chauffeured limousine seated outside the driver's compartment, under a prearranged contract, is treated differently. A wine bottle resealed at the point of purchase and carried in the boot, or behind the last upright row where there is no boot, is not an open container. And an opened container bought from a qualifying permit holder inside a designated outdoor refreshment area may be possessed at an outdoor location inside that area.

• §ORC 4301.62
• §ORC 4301.82

That last one is why the same cup is lawful on one block of a city and a citation on the next. A designated outdoor refreshment area is created under 4301.82 by a municipality or township, with its own boundary, its own hours and its own list of permit holders whose drinks count. The exception is tied to where the drink was bought and where it is being carried, not to the fact that an area exists somewhere in town.

• §ORC 4301.82
• §ORC 4301.62

The overlap with an OVI investigation is where people get surprised. An open container is a fact an officer can see, and facts an officer can see are what reasonable suspicion is built from. The offences stay separate and are proved separately, but the container is not sealed off from everything else happening at the roadside.

• §ORC 4301.62
• §ORC 4511.19
• v.Terry v. Ohio

Whether a particular container counts as opened, whose possession it was in, and whether a location falls inside a prong of the statute are fact questions decided case by case. Municipal ordinances run alongside the state sections and are not word for word identical, so a city charge can read differently from the one described here. The underage provisions, the permit classes named in the exceptions, and the rules for watercraft are each their own statutes. Whether the boot exception fits a particular bottle is a question for a licensed Ohio attorney looking at the actual facts.

• §ORC 4301.62
• §ORC 4301.82
• §ORC 4301.99