They’ll drink to that!
Booze lovers are toasting the Democratic mayoral candidates, who say almost unanimously that if elected they’ll let New Yorkers swill a beer on their stoops.
When asked the question in the “lightning round” at Wednesday’s Democratic mayoral debate, all the candidates — except Erick Salgado, a minister — said city residents should be able to drink a beer on their stoops.
“I should be able to drink ’em in a park and at the beach, too,” Anthony Weiner added.
Though an honored tradition, stoop swigging is illegal under the city’s open-container law. Residents say a change is long overdue.
Kimber VanRy, who beat a $25 ticket after he was cited in 2008 for drinking a Sierra Nevada on the steps of his Prospect Heights brownstone, was happy to see the issue come up at the debate.
“It’s refreshing to see the candidates weighing in on the general feelings of average citizens,” VanRy told The Post.
“It’s a ridiculous regulation, and it’s never enforced consistently.”
VanRy, 45, a sales manager at the Corbis photo agency, said he was fined because his stoop didn’t have a gate. He fought the ticket for more than nine months until a judge dismissed it on “speedy trial grounds.”
VanRy, now of Windsor Terrace, said that if his preferred candidate, Bill de Blasio, wins and changes the law, he’ll walk over to the de Blasios’ brownstone in Park Slope and crack a cold one to celebrate.
Andrew Rausa, an attorney ticketed for drinking on his Cobble Hill stoop on July 4, 2012, said “it’s evaded common sense” that stoop drinking hasn’t been made legal yet.
“It’s an issue of the enjoyment of one’s individual rights, especially when you think of the prices we pay to live in New York,” said Rausa, 26.
“It’s kind of a travesty that you can’t have a beer on your stoop.”
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz — who was called out but not ticketed for drinking white wine on his Brooklyn stoop for an interview on NBC’s “Talk Stoop” segment — said it’s “crazy” that New Yorkers can’t drink on their private property.
“I think it’s an obsolete law that ought to be revisited,” he said. “You need balance and sanity and a little responsible fun.”