The Palm Beach Code Enforcement Board had a pair of out-of-the-ordinary drink-related cases bubble onto its most recent agenda.
One of the cases heard during the July 16 meeting dealt with a man accused of selling chilled fruit juice at the entrance of Midtown Municipal Beach, while the other involved a woman on the Lake Trail who decided to pop open a bottle of wine, police said, while waiting for her ride.
The board ordered the man and the woman each to pay a $150 administrative fee and a $125 fine within 30 days of the hearing.
The cases at the meeting were a peculiarity for the town’s code board, which as a quasi-judicial body typically takes on cases related to construction without a permit or improper construction-site management. It rarely oversees cases regarding vendors soliciting business or the consumption of alcohol in public spaces.
The first case, regarding the sale of fruit juices, was initiated on June 3, when Palm Beach police officers stopped by the beach entrance east of Brazilian Avenue. They found a man with a freezer full of juice on a park bench by a sign advertising the drinks for sale, according to an incident report.
Under the town’s ordinances, vendors can’t solicit business without a permit from the town.
The man was issued the code violation notice the same day, according to the incident report.
The run-in marked the man’s second encounter with code officers. In May, a resident had called to notify the town about the man, but at the time, officers said, they couldn’t prove he was selling juice.
The second unusual case heard by the board involved an incident across town, west of North Lake Way along the Lake Trail. On May 20, a pedestrian alerted patrolling Officer Joseph Birch to a woman who was allegedly drinking from a bottle of white wine while lying on the trail’s seawall, according to an incident report.
“She was in the area, dropped off there waiting for a ride, and I guess decided to consume the bottle of alcohol while she waited,” Birch told the code enforcement board in July.
The town prohibits people from consuming alcohol at a public place, except for patrons of the Par 3 Golf Course, those seated in a restaurant’s outdoor area and or people at Seaview Park, which has tennis facilities. At the latter location, any consumption of alcohol must have prior approval from the town manager.
In the Lake Trail incident, Birch told the board he smelled alcohol on the woman’s breath and saw the opened bottle, leading him to believe she had been drinking the wine before he encountered her.
Though Birch helped the woman jot down the date of the code hearing, she did not appear at the meeting. The man cited for selling juices at the beach also did not attend.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Woman fined in open wine-bottle case on Palm Beach’s Lake Trail
Reporting by Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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By Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News | USA TODAY Network
