nj/alcohol question
 

ok, we all know it's 21 to purchase.

i know it's 18 to pour and sell (because i did it this summer, so did my girlfriend)

what about transporting, say, in your car. if i get pulled over with a sealed six pack in my back seat, can i get in trouble?

i'm gonna say it's illegal to have possesion since you are not old enough to buy it yet. i do not know what the law reads, though, but i imagine you can find it here or here.

I belive that you have to be 18 to transport unopened alkyhaul.

you'd have to prove legal authority to transport.

Possession or Consumption of Alcohol in places by the Underaged N.J.S.A. (2C:33-15)
Any person under the legal age to purchase alcoholic beverages who knowingly possesses without legal authority or who knowingly consumes any alcoholic beverage in any school, public conveyance, public place, place of public assembly, or motor vehicle is guilty of a disorderly persons offense and shall be fined not less than $5000. If the offense occurs in a motor vehicle, it will also result in a six month loss of license.

not worth the risk, if you ask me.

Wow.....I guess I got lucky then when that cop just asked me to keep it in the trunk instead of the backseat.

- Justin

unless the cop wants to be a stickler for the rules (i'd be surprised if half the cops knew about this law) then they usually make sure it's secure and send you on your way. however, opened container is a whole different can of worms.

As a general rule (aside from what the actual law is),

-Irregardless of age, any type of open container is a no-no.
-If you are under 21 (but over 18 ) and transporting, make sure it is in the trunk of your car and not in plain site.
-If you are under 18, you should not be in possession of alcohol at all in your car.

Cops usually won't give someone under 21 (and over 18 ) a hard time if you are transporting alcohol (despite what Jim has proven to us by law) unless you were doing something outrageously stupid to begin with. But if you're under 18, it becomes more questionable as to what the cop will do.

I speak from countless times of experience...


~Joe

well, the reason i asked was that a girl i worked with got in trouble for it a little while ago, but it was kind of under different circumstances. she was driving her car, and stopped at krauzers or something, and her friend who was riding with her (and under 21, but they were both 18 ) went in and bought some kind of alcohol. she said the cops know this place doesn't card, but let them go so they can ticked kids when they come out (entrapment, anyone?). anyway, they pulled her over, arrested her friend, and gave her a ticket. she went to court, and the judge made her cry or something, but she got off relatively easy.

i told her i thought that since she was 18 and the container was closed, there wasn't even a reason for her to get a ticket.

since it was all a set-up, anyway, nothing she could have done would've stopped her from getting a ticket or her friend getting arrested. when cops do things like this, it really pisses me off. you should hit the source, not the leak-down. the leak-down will never stop until you stop the source.

while it could be argued that those that want alcohol will get alcohol, letting some moron continually break the law so the cops can bolster the towns coffers smacks of what NJ is all about. it's all about the almighty dollar.

I know for a fact that you can be 18 to trasnport as long as it is all sealed and in a trunk away from the cabin area IE: our hatch area is fine.

Ahh Cops 'n Shops.....Thank you McGreevy.

I am very familiar with this program. About 2 years ago, while I was 20 and my friend was 21, we walked into a liquor store around the corner from my house that we had both been in dozens of times before. The only thing I touched in the store was a wine corkscrew, while my friend picked out a bottle of wine. He carried it to the counter, paid for it, and carried it out of the store.

Right away, 4 local cops in plain clothes rushed up to us flashing their badges. They demanded ID from both of us. *(side note - my friend looks like he is about 15, while I look much older) Once they saw that he was 21, and I was not, they didn't seem like they knew what to do (obviously they thought he was underage). They stood in front of us and asked each other what they should do (seeing as how technically no laws were broken). One cop (who to this day recieves dirty looks whenever either of us sees him) made the call to arrest us.

The cops tell us right away that we would be charged with some serious stuff, but that they would set up a plea bargain so that we would both get charged with municipal fines, and not have a criminal record.

Needless to say we both got lawyers, and I got off completely free (my lawyer is friendly with many local cops, and he basically threatened to sue for false arrest if they didn't drop the charge). My friend's lawyer wasn't as good, and he still ended up having to pay a municipal fine.

The cops said that the reason for the arrest was because we were "discussing the purchase", but they had no actual proof (our word against theirs).

Just goes to show what cops will do to keep their state funding coming in.....bastards.

- Justin

conspiracy to purchase alcohol. wtf?!? they couldn't possibly have anything better to do, like maybe shutting down the liquor store that was selling to minors and people not of legal age to purchase? or, god forbid, something that is much more of a serious crime... :roll: