FACEOFF: Should beer be sold inside Mountaineer stadium during WVU football games?

West Virginia University athletic director Oliver Luck wants the Board of Governors to consider allowing controlled beer sales at Mountaineer football games while he considers banning a re-entry practice that lets fans drink in parking lots, then return drunk and boisterous.  Luck believes fan behavior will improve with controlled sales inside the stadium. 

"With responsible serving practices and proper vendor training, coupled with the elimination of stadium re-entry, we can control the consumption of alcohol," he said. "... We also anticipate a financial benefit, which would help our self-sustaining athletic department."

Luck said many college stadiums, including all of WVU's Big East counterparts, are selling beer in some capacity.

Board chairwoman Carolyn Long said allowing sales would require changes to existing policy. Details of the proposed changes are available on the board's website and are available for public comment.

Beer has never been sold for general consumption at Mountaineer Field. However, it's been available in the private, individually leased suites at the stadium since 1994.

The athletic department also informed the board of others changes it's considering for game-day operations that do not require board approval, including barring re-entry.

Fans are currently allowed to leave Milan Puskar Stadium during daytime games and re-enter, but that practice is prohibited for night games. Luck wants to extend it to all games. "Public safety is paramount to our game-day operation of the football stadium and other athletic venues," he said. "We have an obligation to provide a safe, friendly atmosphere for Mountaineer fans and our visiting supporters."

In addition to reducing rowdy behavior, WVU officials said beer sales could generate up to $1.2 million for the university.

FACEOFF: Should beer be sold inside Mountaineer stadium during WVU football games?

By Charlie Meyer:

“Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

-Benjamin Franklin

That fabled misquote has made the rounds for many years. Franklin, the hundred dollar bill guy, was actually referring to viniculture, or winemaking. A lot of us still like beer anyway.

For all my Libertarian jokes, I’ve long felt that no beer at college sporting events was a silly “nanny” rule.  If I overindulged, and got into trouble, I certainly would expect little sympathy standing before a magistrate blaming anything other than my own poor, culpable judgment. In a civilized society founded on the rule of law, we are each accountable for our deeds. That’s a price of freedom.

I attended the first Toronto Blue Jays major league baseball game versus the New York Yankees (Hiss! I’m a Mets fan.). Back in the late 1970s, “Toronto the good” forbade beer sales at the game. The Province of Ontario also had Blue Laws restricting alcohol sales on Sundays. A few dozen years hence, I suppose the statute of limitations for the Trading With the Enemy Act has expired for that Cuban cigar I enjoyed in the stands instead.  Times have changed; they likely sell beer and ban smoking at Blue Jays games now.

Back when my rich Uncle Sam paid me to go to Scotland on a regular basis, newly found friends introduced me to their variety of football, which we strangely call “soccer” here.  Beer at sporting venues has long been forbidden throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  That rule notwithstanding, a sizable number of fans were well imbibed before entering the stadium. The party started in small town pubs and continued after the bus stopped in the stadium parking lot.  After the Glasgow Rangers’ match at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, win or lose, smart publicans shuttered their establishments as many were in varying degrees of “over served.”  The Strathclyde regional police were out in force, and for good reason.

That “alles verruckt” (German: crazy) social experiment called Prohibition was a thirteen-year exercise in futility. It flopped. Badly.  Even in that straitlaced corrupt family racket called Saudi Arabia, there’s drink to be found if you are rich or well connected.  At least the social engineering “no-nannies” here haven’t yet talked about bringing back flogging for public intoxication with their scaremongering over so-called “sharia law.”

Have you priced a beer at a professional football or baseball game lately? There’s a hefty markup in the inflated price.  They also have venue staff with a statutory licensing responsibility to maintain some degree of control over who gets served.  Imperfect, yes, but by and large, it works.

Regular readers know I like musician Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band. The most convenient venue is near Manassas, Virginia.  Despite posted warnings from dour officials in Prince William County, the beer flows and the blenders churn out margaritas in the parking lot.  Security employees at the gate are there to make sure you’re still standing and aren’t bringing alcoholic beverages in, or at least until you get to the first of several beer vendors inside.  Those beer stations are staffed by a wide variety of charitable organizations as a coveted fund raising activity.  Only a fool would run the substantial police traffic control gauntlet to drive home when they shouldn’t.  The fools tend to receive the local courts’ punishments. Not recommended.

A traditional annual pastime for my family is a trip to South Bend, Ind. for a Notre Dame football game.  It gets my octogenarian Dad back in his element.  The commandment of honoring one’s father and mother is the easiest rule for me. Tailgate parties are de rigeur outside the stadium.

Thirty-odd years ago, I flew in for a game from Honolulu. Indiana in November is not shorts and flip-flop weather, especially in a stadium called “The house that Knute (Rockne) built.” In the stands, I leaned over and whispered into my Class of ’55 Dad’s ear: “Some Christian charity they teach here, the old guy seated next to me has a pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s (Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, Same as Our Fathers Made It), and he wasn’t sharing. “ Never mind the threat of expulsion prominently printed on each ticket.

I was one among many who mourned the tearing down of the old Notre Dame University Club in order to erect a new science building, but the prayers of the faithful were answered when another bar appeared nearby on campus. As with other universities, beer is still verboten in the stadium.  Come to think of it, I can’t recall seeing any falling-down drunks over the years there.  Tickets to perennially sold-out games are hard enough to get. 

There’s also a lot of school pride in Morgantown. Come to think of it, it’s legendary.  Over do it, embarrass your hosts, and those coveted football game invites might well become scarce.

As we learned in this country from the total failure of Prohibition, a sizable proportion of society’s adults drink. There really isn’t any way to stop it. Most drink responsibly.  For those who don’t, existing laws sanction the irresponsible. 

If the objective is to place sensible controls over alcohol at sporting events, it makes sense to control beer sales within the confines of the stadium. The University and non-profit charities, if used, would benefit from the additional revenue stream, while exerting some degree of control over service.  There is virtually no control over beer at tailgate parties in the parking lots.

After this brief fling with the Libertarians, I’ll leave them to face the aggravated wrath of the “family values” religious Right, their usual dance partners.

By Stephen Smoot:

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

I can almost guarantee that my counterpart will mine that same turn of the phrase from Benjamin Franklin.  After all, the first time that I met Charlie after he started writing this column we sat down at the old Outback one afternoon and tossed back a couple.  Beer has a mystical quality to it that is different than that of liquor.  Production of beer goes back, according to some, over seven thousand years.  That means that mankind learned to brew beer two thousand years before we learned to write.  Although plenty of women enjoy it, beer is a symbol of masculinity itself.  It is at once elite and pedestrian, celebrated for taste qualities as well as those of possibly inducing intoxication.  When you walk up to a man in a bar, you can often judge who he is, or what he aspires to be, by the brand name on the label. Beer is a gift from history, or God Almighty Himself if you agree with Benjamin Franklin.  It is the delicious, thirst quenching, beautiful drink.  And now, in Morgantown, it has grown into a huge debate.  Although beer may be a divinely inspired commodity, Oliver Luck may have a devil of a time convincing some fans that it belongs back in Mountaineer Field, excuse me,  sorry, Milan Puskar Stadium.

Every administrator at West Virginia University has concerns about fan behavior.  Now that WVU has grown into a national program in football, basketball, soccer, and other sports, it has more worries than ever about national perception and how that could influence student recruiting.  Some of those issues stem from a general prejudice against West Virginia itself. Fan behavior at WVU is not really better or worse than in most other venues. However, we often get tossed into the bottom of the perception barrel with Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders fans.

So how does selling beer inside the stadium help this situation?  Every good football fan knows that tailgating is half of the fun.  Deep fried turkeys, kegs of beer, trays of wings, and furtively produced mason jars are all part of the experience.  Thousands of men and women eat and drink as much as they possibly can, then lurch off to the stadium to find their seats.  Until now, they could leave at halftime and be readmitted for the third quarter.  Athletic Director Oliver Luck wants to end the readmission policy and start selling beer.

This policy would reduce intoxication and inhibit consumption.  A 12 ounce bottle of beer from a twelve pack costs less than a dollar when you break it down.  That same twelve ounce beer would cost $2.50 in a bar and at least twice as much at the stadium.  A bottle of beer at the Sugar Bowl a few years back cost $8.  Simple economics says that most people could not afford to drink nearly as much if confined to the stadium for the duration of the game (which Luck hopes that people would rather stay and watch than go wandering out early to get drunk again.)  Stadium sales of beer would also generate more revenue, which would (hopefully) defer future rises in ticket prices.  And let’s be perfectly blunt here.  In the parking lots, a lot of these folks are not drinking beer.  They’re partaking in various kinds of liquor, including highly intoxicating beverages such as Everclear and good old fashioned moonshine.

This policy makes sense in a number of ways and I do support the changes, but it probably will do little to curb the perception problem of West Virginia fans.  Most unruly behavior does not take place within the friendly confines of the stadium walls (although during the 2003 Pitt game, while sitting in the student section, I did see a young man in an opposing team jersey have to vacate his seat after having several drinks thrown in his direction.  Have to admit that my reaction at the time was “stupid Pitt fan.”)  There will always be incidents in the stadium, but it is out in the parking lots where the real problems occur.  Out in the nether regions filled with trucks and campers reside many hundreds of folks who come to tailgate, but never see the inside of the stadium.  They have the entire several hour period to eat, drink, and think up a lot of lines to use on opposing fans that they’d never say near their own mother (unless, of course, their mother is tailgating with them.)

So the proposed policy makes sense and would help behavior inside the stadium.  However, parking lot security and safety is the bigger issue.  WVU officials could establish multiple entry and exit corridors that are clearly marked and heavily patrolled by campus security and police.  This would deter most of the drunken fools and give opposing team fans more reassurance.  Beer may be proof that God wants us to be happy, but He probably does not want us drinking gallons of it and then cursing other people as they try to safely leave a university function.  Luck’s plan is a start, but he needs to examine more ways to help protect opposing team fans and the image of West Virginia University itself without infringing too much on our fans’ ability to safely have a good time and create a powerful game day atmosphere.