Drinking in a Limousine

Q: I know it’s illegal to have an open container of alcohol in a car, so why is a limo allowed to have a bar?

A: Before I answer your question, I have one of my own: Why would we craft a law that makes it illegal to have an open container of alcohol in a vehicle (assuming it’s not the driver that’s holding it, of course)? Prior to 1983, Washington didn’t have an open container law, but as Bob Dylan sang two decades earlier, the times, they were a-changin’.

In 1980, approximately 28,000 people were killed in alcohol-involved crashes. One of those people was Cari Lightner, a 13-year-old girl who was walking to a church carnival when she was killed by a repeat offender, just out of jail from a 4^th DUI arrest. In that year Cari’s mother, Candace, founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

The work of MADD and other grassroots organizations brought needed attention to impaired driving, and the early 80s were a turning point in our cultural attitudes toward DUI. Many states began implementing stricter laws to prevent impaired driving, and that included open container laws. The goal of open container laws is to reduce driver access to alcohol, and they work. States with open container laws have a lower proportion of alcohol-involved fatal crashes compared to states without open container laws.

In a 15-year stretch starting in 1982, more than 1,700 impaired driving laws passed nationwide. The laws, and our changing attitudes, made a difference. In the last ten years we’ve averaged just over 11,000 alcohol-related traffic fatalities, even as we’ve more than doubled the number of miles driven since 1982. That’s still far too many deaths, but significant progress compared to the early 80s.

Returning to your question, Washington’s open container law prohibits drinking “any alcoholic beverage in a motor vehicle when the vehicle is upon a highway,” possessing an alcoholic beverage if the container has been opened (even if you’ve put the cap/cork/lid back on), and keeping an opened alcoholic beverage within the occupant area of a vehicle.

But the law has exceptions. If you’ve hired a limousine from a licensed company, and it’s operated by a properly licensed driver as part of their employment, the open container law doesn’t apply. And for good reason, I believe; if a group of people want to combine drinking and travel, hiring a professional driver is their safest bet. It’s not limited to limousines. You could charter a bus and serve alcohol, so long as it’s just your group on board and you have a professional driver. Buying an old school bus and driving your friends around would not meet the requirements of the exception.

While a chartered vehicle is alright, it’s not legal to drink alcohol on public transportation. That’s not so much to stop impaired driving as it is to prevent passenger problems. The best-case scenario is a happy drunk woman rallying everyone on the double-decker bus to sing a raucous version of “You are my Sunshine” as they cruise down the strip. But this isn’t Las Vegas, and you can easily imagine a lot of worse outcomes for impaired passengers and the adjacent riders.

Passing open container laws was one of many steps in our path toward eliminating impaired driving. Several states, including Washington, are midway through their next step: reducing the per se limit for blood alcohol from .08 to .05. That’s already the standard in nearly 100 countries. Utah did it in 2018. If it passes, senate bill 5067 would make Washington the second state with a .05 per se limit.