Schools juggle liquor laws LSU banned by SEC; Nicholls free to sell booze

An autumn Saturday afternoon in the South – pads popping on the gridiron, fans shouting at the top of their lungs and the mystique snap sound as the top is pulled open on an ice-cold beer.

But thanks to restrictions set down by some conferences, the last portion of that equation has been virtually eliminated inside of collegiate athletic events in the South – and in particular at LSU.

It is often a misnomer that the NCAA has rules and regulations that ban alcohol from being sold on college campuses during sporting events.

LSU Associate Vice Chancellor for Communications and Senior Associate Athletic Director, Herb Vincent said that is not the case, and it is actually the Southeastern Conference that does not permit the sale of alcoholic beverages during sporting events.

“The SEC does not permit the sale of alcoholic beverages at athletic events except in private, controlled areas,” Vincent said.

Those “private” areas Vincent referred to are areas in the stadium where controls are able to be in place for “distribution and containment,” according to Brendan Fouracre, LSU’s director of event management.

Those typically include VIP lounges or other luxury seating arrangements at LSU facilities.

“Areas such as the Tiger Den Suites and the Stadium Club inside Tiger Stadium during football games meet these requirements, as does the suites and Champions Club settings at Alex Box Stadium for baseball,” Fouracre said.

With liquor comes the obvious problem of alcohol-related foul behavior.

LSU Interim Police Chief Lawrence Rabalais said his office sees countless incidents at tailgating locations on game day, and he understands why the SEC has its rules in place.

“Anytime you have a stretch of 10 hours where people will be actively consuming alcohol, you will have more problems,” Rabalais said. “That puts a large strain on our officers who also have to work the game later in the evening.”

The interim police chief also said he does not buy the argument that the sale of alcohol would cause people to ease their liquor throughout the day.

“People will cause more mischief the more liquor they have in their systems,” he said. “Thank God for the game because without it, there wouldn’t be that four-hour sober period for the people before the drive home.”

At Nicholls, the Southland Conference does not have rules prohibiting alcohol sales and the school allows liquor to be sold only during baseball games.

Colonels Athletic Director Rob Bernardi said the move was enacted in the late 1990s.

“It’s baseball and that’s it,” he said. “At no other avenue have we made the decision to sell alcohol.”

Bernardi said his athletic department receives very little in funds from the liquor sales and money wasn’t the purpose of allowing alcohol at games.

“It’s really not a revenue generator at all for the Nicholls Athletic Department,” he said. “We don’t get much money from that … That’s a big source of revenue for other programs, but not for us. UL-Lafayette does it, and they have it set up to where the revenues go right through to the baseball program … And I know UNO does that as well. For us, it’s not about that at this point.”

On the contrary of what Rabalais said he sees at LSU, Bernardi said the amount of violence aand problems is virtually null at Nicholls baseball games.

“To this point, we honestly haven’t had any problems,” Bernardi said. “We have a booster club that meets in the outfield and they have alcohol out there. We haven’t had any problems that I know of and we sell it through concession through baseball. Everything has gone very well. We do a great job making sure everyone who is buying is of age.”

Bernardi said he has heard whispers through the grapevine that other programs in the Southland, including Southeastern Louisiana are looking to include alcohol sales at football events – an idea the Colonels’ headman said could be explored in time in Thibodaux.

“We’ve had some kind of preliminary discussions about kind of getting it expanded to football, but I can say it really hasn’t gotten all that far along,” he said. “It’s just been kind of informal talks about it. It’s definitely not something that we wouldn’t consider. But right now, there aren’t any imminent plans for it.”