Here are 8 alcohol-related laws you need to know if you’re going to drink in NC
North Carolina sticks out from the rest of the country with some of its rules about selling, purchasing and consuming alcohol.
In fact, if you’re a transplant, your first “happy hours near me” Google search might have made your hair stand on end.
Here are some the state’s alcohol-related laws you need to know about.
1. NC liquor stores are government-owned
When driving by the glowing liquor store signs, have you ever wondered if the “ABC” was an acronym for something?
It stands for the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission — so yes, the state controls all of North Carolina’s liquor stores.
The commission operates several hundred ABC stores in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties — except for far-western Graham County, The N&O previously reported. (More on that later.)
But there’s been growing pressure to open up the market to private companies, especially after The N&O revealed in 2018 that ABC wasted millions of taxpayer dollars ($11.3 million, to be exact) over 13 years.
You can use ABC’s government website to track down a liquor store near you: abc.nc.gov/Search/ABCStoreLocator
2. Happy Hours illegal in North Carolina
Yes, to an extent. At least the happy hours you’re probably thinking about.
North Carolina food and drink establishments are only able to offer Happy Hour food specials. If businesses are interested in holding drink specials, the discount must last the whole day.
▪ Establishments can sell margarita pitchers, bottles of wine, beer buckets and more large-quantity alcoholic options to two or more patrons, per 14B NCAC 15B .0223.
There is a slight exception to the drink special rule: Four days out of the year, businesses can offer a package deal – either for food or entertainment – where alcoholic beverages are included in the price. These four days include New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
“The offer of a meal and alcoholic beverage at a single total price is not a violation of this Section so long as the total price reflects the actual price of the alcoholic beverages and not a reduced price,” ABC Rule 2S.232 (d)(e) says.
3. Bottomless mimosas are illegal in NC, too
This isn’t an anti-mimosa rule — it applies to all alcoholic drinks.
Administrative rule 14B NCAC 15B .0223 states that an on-premise permittee shall not:
- Sell more than one drink to a customer for a single price
- Determine a single price based upon the required purchase of more than one drink
- Give more than one drink at one time to a customer for their consumption
“’Bottomless’ drink offers (paying one price for multiple drinks) would be in violation of thus rule,” said Erin Bean, the NC Department of Public Safety’s alcohol law enforcement public information officer.
4. Alcohol sales are limited on Sundays in NC
ABC stores are closed on Sundays.
The 2017 “brunch bill,” signed into state law by Gov. Roy Cooper, allowed restaurants to begin serving alcoholic beverages at 10 a.m. on Sundays, The N&O previously reported. Before that, the sale of alcohol wasn’t allowed to begin on Sundays until noon.
A later addition to the bill expanded the provision to include grocery stores, convenience markets, private clubs and any other place licensed to sell alcohol.
In October 2021, the first bottle of liquor was legally sold in North Carolina on a Sunday since the beginning of Prohibition in the early 1900s, WRAL reported. The state’s distilleries became able to sell their own liquor products last fall after changes were made to a wide-ranging alcoholic beverage control law.
5. No open containers / broken seals in the car
Basically, once you break the seal on a bottle of alcohol, you can’t have it in your car. (It can, however, ride in the trunk or in the very back of a station wagon or SUV.)
▪ Both open and closed (sealed) containers of any kind of alcoholic beverage is prohibited in a commercial vehicle, like a bus or dump truck. There are some exceptions, which can be found at cdps.gov.
▪ When the legislature approved cocktails to go in 2020, there were all kinds of rules about how everything had to packaged for transport, The N&O previously reported. The cocktail needs to be in a sealed container and must be kept sealed at all times when getting transported from the restaurant or bar to your destination — the same as a bottle of liquor purchased at an ABC store, per the governor’s office. You cannot consume the beverage inside your vehicle.
NOTE: Some city ordinances may also make it illegal to walk with an open container in public.
6. Public intoxication is not a crime in NC
It’s not against the law to be drunk in a public place (like a restaurant or a store), N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 14-447 says
▪ But while police officers cannot arrest you for being intoxicated, they may take a publicly intoxicated person under protective custody, which could include to the person’s home or to a loved one’s home. It could also include a shelter or a healthcare facility, according to N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 122C-301.
▪ Additionally, it is a crime to be disruptive while publicly intoxicated. It’s unlawful to do any of the following while drunk in public, according to N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 14-444, and you could be charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor:
Block or interfere with traffic on a highway or public vehicular area
Block or lie across, otherwise prevent or interfere with access to or passage across, a sidewalk or entrance to a building
Grab, shove, push or fight others, or challenge others to fight
Curse, shout at or otherwise rudely insult others
Panhandle or beg for money or other property
7. North Carolina has a ‘dry county’
Graham County in western North Carolina is the only county in the state to be “dry,” meaning that the sale of alcohol is illegal there.
However, according to Graham’s tourism website, a few resorts in the area went through “a lengthy and expensive process” of getting a special license to sell alcohol.
8. NC’s DWI blood alcohol limit is .08% (except when it’s not)
There are a few hard and fast rules when it comes to DWI (driving while impaired) charges in North Carolina, but having blood alcohol content under 0.08% alcohol by volume doesn’t automatically mean you’re in the clear.
▪ If your Intoxilyzer test reads 0.08% or more, your license gets revoked for 30 days. After 10 days, a limited driving privilege becomes available.
▪ That limit drops to 0.04% if you’re driving a commercial vehicle.
▪ For those under the age of 21, or those driving school buses or child care vehicles, there is a zero tolerance policy: no level of alcohol consumption is permitted when driving.
Here are some other DWI rules in North Carolina, according to the NC Department of Public Safety:
If you refuse an Intoxilyzer test (either breath or blood), your license is automatically revoked for 30 days, and DPS imposes an additional one-year revocation after the opportunity for a hearing. Even if you’re found not guilty of a DWI in court, the one-year revocation is still imposed for refusing the test, but you can get a limited driving privilege granted after six months.
If someone under the age of 21 refuses an Intoxilyzer test and merely has the smell of alcohol on their breath, they can be convicted of driving after drinking.
This story was originally published February 17, 2022 at 11:57 AM with the headline "Here are 8 alcohol-related laws you need to know if you’re going to drink in NC."
