From 1st Septemeber, drinking beer openly from a beer bottle in U-Bahnhofs in Cologne will get you paying a €40 fine. Köln becomes the first town in NRW to ban beer in its stations. This has already been in effect for many years in other towns like Hamburg, Nürnberg and Munich.
The ban put in place by KVB (Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe), applies to all stations but not to areas between stations. Apparently many clients have remarked that they feel insecure when they are in the tram/train with people who were drinking beer.