OCEAN CITY, Md. - Next time you head to Ocean City, you may want to make a mental note that open containers of alcohol will no longer be tolerated in public, even if you're 21. By request of the Ocean City Police Department, Town Council members passed an ordinance to change the punishment for possessing an open alcohol container in public. The beach town will return to the laws that were in place before 2008. Those laws now give police officers in the Town the ability to arrest people who are drinking outside.
Officer Michael Levy, of the Ocean City PD says, "The law has always been there, we've never not had an open container law in Ocean city . . . So the City Council re-instituted the ability of the officers to make an arrest, or write a citation, or give a warning depending on the circumstances."
This new ordinance is effective immediately.