TRAVERSE CITY — Drinking in certain public spaces within Traverse City will no longer be allowed after city commissioners agreed to a new public consumption ordinance.
Commissioners approved the ordinance 6-0 Tuesday, with Mi Stanley absent. It’s the first of three ordinances city Police Chief Matthew Richmond proposed in 2024 during discussions about permitting Safe Harbor, an overnight homeless shelter, to switch to all-year operations from seasonal.
The ordinance bans drinking alcohol on any public rights-of-way like streets, sidewalks, or public parking lots or structures. Businesses licensed for outdoor alcohol sales could still serve or deliver it it to a designated area of a right-of-way, sidewalk or public parking area, if the city commission gives the OK.
After the meeting, City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht said the ban on drinking in public parking applies to city-owned or -leased lots or structures.
“If you can get a ticket from parking services for parking there, then you can get a ticket for drinking there,” she said.
The ban does not apply to parks or the city’s social district on Eighth Street at Garfield Avenue — both fall under different rules, with beer or alcohol allowed in many parks but banned in some, and the Michigan Liquor Control Commission setting regulations for social districts.
Commissioner Heather Shaw asked Richmond if the new ordinance will be enforced equitably.
“If someone is partying in the parking lot at the farmers market and drinking, they should get ticketed just like an unhoused person on Washington Street or in an alley, right? I don’t want to discriminate between the partier at the farmers market and the homeless person in the alley,” she said.
Richmond replied that the department does not have a 100-percent enforcement policy, and city police officers have discretion unless otherwise ordered.
That means they often give warnings instead of tickets, and he called someone complying with a warning to pour out their beverage and move along a best-case scenario.
“Not everybody deserves a ticket or to go to jail, and for me to put 100-percent enforcement in place, I don’t believe in that,” he said.
Richmond said he’s also willing to meet with Trible-Laucht soon to revisit two other ordinances he proposed as part of the public safety strategy.
Those ordinances, which covered prowling and loitering, received pushback from commissioners before, and Trible-Laucht said she and Richmond consulted with the American Civil Liberties Union to rework the draft language.
The ban on public consumption will take effect eight days after the city publishes it, interim city Manager Benjamin Marentette said.