Is an AA meeting considered a public space?
More specifically can a group limit people from, exposing themselves, ie: breastfeeding for example. Which, in many places, women can do legally "in public."
You're apparently asking a question of law. That's a better question for lawyers because the laws that apply to AA meetings are rarely of concern to an AA group.
But what we can tell you is that AA groups consider themselves to be private. Since AA
never takes any public funding we consider ourselves to be fully in charge of what happens in meetings. AA strives to be as independent from government as possible.
It seems a safe bet to say an AA meeting is NOT a public gathering (at least in the USA).
Sometimes groups meet in publicly owned facilities - like hospitals or libraries and in those cases perhaps an argument could be made that the meetings must follow laws applicable to public gatherings.
Our fifth tradition says,"each group has but one primary purpose?to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers." Since the main reason to have any AA meeting is to help alcoholics who have not yet recovered, it doesn't seem the meeting is "public;" the meeting is for helping sick people, not for everyone. On the other hand, visitors are seldom excluded from open meetings; perhaps they can learn something that empowers them to carry AA's message of recovery to a suffering alcoholic.
