When the crowds descend on Autzen Stadium on football weekends throughout the fall, just about every police officer in Eugene is on hand to help manage the hordes.
That leaves the acres of tailgate parties that have sprung around the home field largely unsupervised – a situation that’s led the police department to petition for changes to Eugene’s public drinking ordinance.
“We’re basically out of police officers to police the event,” said Capt. Pete Kerns, who supervises game-day operations. “There just aren’t enough officers to go around.”
Existing rules ban drinking in public everywhere in the city with a single, important exception: the parking lot owned by the University immediately outside Autzen Stadium on game days.
But that space has shrunk over the past few years as the university has put buildings and playing fields into former parking areas. That’s pushed tailgaters out into privately owned lots in the area.
The proposed new rule would suspend the ordinance for a yet-to-be-defined area around the stadium, essentially making legal something that people have been doing anyway for many years.
The ordinance change is scheduled for a public hearing Sept. 10, and the City Council is expected to vote on the proposal Sept. 24. Right now, it appears likely to pass.
Council members who support the change cite the perceived unfairness of allowing drinking in one parking lot and banning it right across the street.
What concerns police, though, isn’t tailgating equality, it’s the reality of policing a city with too few cops to go around. Kerns said it takes 40 to 50 extra officers to handle traffic and crowd control in and around the stadium on game days.
“We can’t allow an entertainment event to reduce the services that we provide to the rest of the community,” Kerns said. “So we barely have enough officers to provide the fundamental security and traffic control in and around the stadium.”
It would take at least an additional 40 officers to enforce the city’s public drinking ban in the area around the stadium, he said.
Lot owners covered by the proposed new ordinance would have to keep their crowds under control. If they don’t, they face a first-offense fine of $200 that rises to $500 for subsequent violations with a one-year loss of the alcohol exemption after the third violation.
Lot owners also have to post signs and hand out fliers reminding tailgaters that drinking is allowed only during certain times on game days, that alcohol cannot be offered for sale and that disorderly conduct is not tolerated.
The university also supports the proposed ordinance.
“We think that what the police have in mind is the sensible thing to do, and we’d like to be helpful,” said Dan Williams, a special assistant for athletics to President Dave Frohnmayer. “It recognizes the reality of the circumstances and tries to treat everybody the same.”
The expansion is opposed by the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has said the move would send the wrong message for public safety.