R
rclear
Guest
- Jurisdiction
- North Carolina
Just wanted to say thank you in advance for any feedback I receive. I'm 22 years of age in college at the University of Charlotte North Carolina. My fraternity was having an event on Thursday night at a bar downtown. We rent out buses that drive us to these events but they are parked about 5 minutes away from the house we live at on campus. Our Fraternity house is a wet house so we are allowed to consume alcoholic beverages. Upon walking to the buses I had a mixed drink inside of a dark red solo cup. Our buses are parked in a parking lot on an elevated surface so there is a staircase about 10 feet in length that one must walk up in order to get to the buses. As I was walking I noticed that the police were out of their cars up ahead in the parking lot stopping people with open containers. As I approached the stairs ( around 50 feet away from the police) I dropped my solo cup and proceeded up the steps. When getting to the top of the stairs I walked another 10 yards and was stopped by an officer who asked me for my ID. I politely handed it to him and asked what the issue was. He explained that he was stopping me for an open container. Confused I asked him what open container he was talking about, at the time I had nothing in my hands when he stopped me. He said he saw me toss it earlier. I explained to him that their was no alcohol in that cup, it was Gatorade. As the process went on they asked if they could breathalyze me in order to determine if I was under .21 which would require them to take me to the hospital if so. I agreed to the test and blew .08. They still continued in issuing me a ticket. I guess my issue with this is that they never went back to my cup to prove whether or not I was drinking alcohol and when they stopped me I didn't have a cup in my hand. On the citation in the description was written "consumed mixed beverage in cup on sidewalk." Will this hold up in court? Do you think I should get a lawyer?
