Savannah Open Container Law: Where You Can Drink on the Street

Savannah wrote a specific exception for the downtown core into its city code. The table below compresses the rule from City Code section 6-1214 into the questions people actually ask at the bar. Read it before you order, because the details matter: cup material, cup size and the one-drink limit.

One more thing worth saying up front: the cup rule is a permission, not a blank check. Public intoxication laws apply everywhere in the city, inside the zone and out. Carrying a drink legally does not protect you if you are visibly drunk and causing a problem, and it does not apply at all once you cross the zone boundary.

The rule lives in Savannah City Code section 6-1214, as amended effective January 1, 2018. The code does three things. First, it defines the to-go cup zone, the geography inside which the exception operates.

Second, it licenses the transaction: only a licensed bar or similar establishment can sell you a to-go drink, one per person. Third, it sets the container rules. Paper or plastic cup only.

No can, no bottle, no glass. No open container on streets, sidewalks, parks or squares inside the zone may exceed 16 fluid ounces, and no person may carry out more than one drink at a time.

What the cup rules mean in practice

The ordinance does not explain its reasons, but the effect is easy to see. Every to-go drink is a single poured serving: no cans or bottles to carry around, no glass on the brick and cobblestones, and nothing over 16 fluid ounces. The size limit applies to you, not only to the bar: the code says no person may possess an open container over 16 fluid ounces in the zone, so a large cup is your problem if an officer asks.

What the code does not do

It does not allow drinking anywhere in the city. Outside the zone, open containers in public are not allowed, full stop. It does not allow public intoxication anywhere.

And it does not apply to private property rules, so a bar, restaurant or venue can still have its own stricter house rules. If a business asks you to leave the drink outside or toss it before entering, the code does not override them.

The 2018 zone covers the historic downtown north of Jones Street. It starts at the north at the Savannah River, which is the city limits, so that includes River Street and the city part of Hutchinson Island across the water. It runs south to Jones Street.

That is the boundary most visitors need to remember, because several famous sights sit just south of it. On the west it reaches the Talmadge Bridge line and West Boundary Street. On the east it reaches the railroad line east of Savannah River Landing.

In practical terms, almost everything a first-time visitor does downtown sits inside the zone. River Street, City Market, the squares between the river and Jones Street, and the major ghost tour meeting points all fall within the rectangle. Forsyth Park, at the southern end, does not sit in the core zone, which matters because the park is a popular place to carry a drink on a warm evening.

See the expansion section below for the pilot that changed that, at least temporarily.

Landmarks inside the zone

To orient yourself: the meeting point for the Candlelit Ghost Walking Tour at Chippewa Square is inside. The Dead of Night adults-only walk checks in at the Nathanael Greene Monument in Johnson Square, inside. The haunted pub crawl meets in Madison Square, a block from the Jones Street line, inside.

The Fraidy Cat family tour meets at the fountain in Columbia Square, inside. When in doubt, finish the drink before you cross Jones Street going south.

The zone has been moving, or at least the city has been talking about moving it, and this is where visitors get caught out. In June 2020 the city council ran a 90-day pilot that extended the zone in a ribbon along Bull Street south to Victory Drive, including most of Forsyth Park. That pilot was later extended to February 2021.

So if you read an older travel article saying you can legally carry a cup through Forsyth Park, that information came from the pilot era and may no longer be current.

More recently, in May 2024 the city asked for public comment on a draft to move the boundary south to Victory Drive and east to Waters Avenue and Wheaton Street. That would permanently fold Forsyth Park and the Starland District area into the cup zone. The city has been studying the idea, and the rule you get on any given visit depends on what council has actually adopted.

The honest advice: check the city's current map before carrying a cup south of Jones Street. North of Jones Street, the core zone is settled and stable. South of it, the status depends on pilot programs and council action, and a rule that was true on your last trip may not be true on this one.

The same caution applies during festivals, where the festival rules mirror the core zone unless another ordinance says otherwise.

This is a site about ghost tours, so here is where the open container rule and the tours actually intersect. Two listings in our catalog are built around it. The Haunted Savannah Pub Crawl carries drinks on the street between pubs under the open container rule, meeting in Madison Square, and the Original Murder Tour true crime pub crawl moves between at least four bars with drinks bought at each stop.

The walking tours do not include drinks, though the family walk allows you to bring one along. The table below compares the two crawls with the three walks that meet downtown, all north of Jones Street.

How the crawls actually use the rule

On the haunted pub crawl, drinks are bought at each pub and are not included in the $35 per person ticket. The group walks about 90 minutes between haunted sites with 3 to 5 pub stops, and the cup rule is what makes the format work. Between bars you can carry your drink legally rather than chugging it at the door.

The same logic applies on the true crime crawl, a two-hour walk through real Savannah crime cases with at least four bar stops. Both crawls require you to be 21 or over and carry photo ID.

On the non-drinking walks

The candlelit walk, the adults-only walk and the family walk do not sell or include drinks. The candlelit walk is explicit in its fine print that guests who arrive intoxicated can be refused with no refund, and there are no bathroom stops in its 90 minutes, so heavy drinking before the 7:00, 7:30, 9:00 or 9:30 pm departure is a bad plan. The adults-only walk is 16 and over and runs 90 minutes through the Historic District.

The family walk is the one listing that invites you to bring a drink, which makes sense for parents pushing a stroller on a warm evening. If you want to combine the cup rule with the ghost stories, the crawls are the format built for it.

The rule is simple, which is exactly why people fumble it. Most trouble falls into a short list of avoidable mistakes, so here it is as a checklist you can run through before you leave the bar.

The three most common visitor mistakes

First, carrying the can. People buy a beer at a package store, crack it on the sidewalk and assume Savannah is Savannah. It is not.

The exception only covers poured to-go cups from licensed bars. Second, crossing Jones Street with a full cup. The southern boundary is an ordinary street, and the Forsyth Park pilot years trained people to think the park is in the zone.

Verify before you walk south with a drink. Third, assuming the cup rule covers behavior. An open container ticket is one thing.

Public intoxication is another, it applies everywhere, and it is what actually ruins nights. The tour fine print agrees with the law on this. The candlelit walk can refuse intoxicated guests with no refund, and both crawls require photo ID.

Savannah's open container rule rewards a little preparation. Stay inside the cup zone, keep your drink in a compliant cup, carry one at a time and know where the boundary sits before you head south toward Forsyth Park. Then the choice is just about format.

A guided pub crawl handles the route and the stories for you, or you can carry a legal cup on your own walk through the squares. When you are ready to plan the evening, browse our Savannah GA ghost tour options and pick the night that fits.