Having a few pints is a lot of fun – so is operating a boat on the water on a warm summer weekend. 

But trying to mix the two conveyances could lose you your privileges to handle a car as well as a boat.

Drinking alcohol while boating or fishing is no longer acceptable and is illegal in most instances.

Under the Liquor Licence Act of Ontario, it is an offence to consume alcohol in a moving boat (this includes canoes and sailboats) unless a licence or permit, designating the boat a “private place,” allows you to do so.

Sgt. Dave Goodbrand, Barrie Police media spokesperson, outlines what a boat needs to be “private.”

“Number one, it has to be anchored; number two, it has to have a fixed, permanent kitchen, galley-style, as in a cooking facility – you can’t just throw a barbecue on it; (the kitchen) has to be fixed and approved,” Goodbrand tells The Advance. “Also, it has to have a fixed head or toilet – not a port-a-potty – but one that has to have the capacity to pump water out of the boat.  

“But even with a kitchen and a head, you can’t be cruising around with it. The boat has to be stationary for us to look at it as a ‘private place’.”

Once boaters pull anchor and move away, the same rules apply as they do to driving a car; the liquor gets closed up and put away, and the “captain” does not operate the boat while impaired.

Constable Kirk Wood of the Ontario Provincial Police is a veteran marine officer, and notices a sea change in attitude, following the passage of the legislation outlawing drinking and boating.

“At one time,” Wood says, it was considered okay to down a few while boating, “that it wasn’t that much of a concern. They didn’t treat it as seriously as they would (travelling) in a motor vehicle. But lately – in the last five, six years – I would say it’s not as widely accepted in society.

“I think – with the different groups like MADD, etc. – generating better awareness, people don’t tolerate it like they used to.”

The current legislation went into effect two years, and under the latest amendments, the Highway Traffic Act authorizes marine police to suspend your driver’s licence for 12 hours if you’re caught with up to 50 to 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. If you blow over 80 mgs., your licence will be suspended for 90 days.

A first conviction for impaired driving of a motorboat in Ontario will now result in the suspension of your licence to drive a motor vehicle on land. The provincial government in June 2006 amended the law to extend the penalties for drunk driving on the road to boaters convicted of driving while impaired or with excess alcohol.

A first conviction for impaired boating will result in a one-year suspension of your driver’s licence. To get that licence reinstated, you will have to pay $150 and enroll in the transport ministry’s Back on Track driver rehabilitation program – which will set you back another $500.

When your licence is reinstated, you’ll have to use an ignition interlock device in your car for at least a year (say goodbye to another $1,000).

And how busy have Wood and his OPP cohorts been, educating boaters that it’s not okay?

 “I’ve done marine policing for 22 years now,” he tells The Advance, “and every spring we have workshops for younger people in regards to safe boating, and we do attend different marinas, different cottage associations, updating them on marine law. There’s a demand for us to do these presentations.

“I think, in general, if you educate the boating public and you start at a young age, it is a benefit. There’s less confusion; we explain the law to them, and I feel it’s working over the last few years.”

(Actual statistics dealing with charges being laid under the amendments were not available at press time.)

Goodbrand concurs: “The message we have to get out for enforcement purposes is that a boat is no different than a car. You don’t drive around with open beers in a car, so why would you do it in a boat?

Just remember; there’s a time and a place for everything if you’re heading out onto the water. Remember to steer your craft with skill and consideration for other users of the lake, and to keep command of what you’re doing. After all, you’re handling a vehicle.

Water on the water – beer on the pier: It’s more than just a slogan!