What should UGA do about tailgating troublemakers?
UGA students want the tailgate tents to return to North Campus. (Photo by Bill King)
The issue of what to do about tailgating before football games at UGA reared its head again this week.
The Athens Banner-Herald reported that while students want the school to ease up on restrictions imposed last season on tailgating on the historic North Campus, the administration instead may crack down on tailgaters in other parts of campus.
The Student Government Association has asked the university to drop the prohibition of tents and tables longer than 4 feet and the rule of no tailgating on campus until four hours before kickoff. The ban on kegs, televisions, grills or other cookers, generators and household furniture such as couches on North Campus would remain in place under the student proposal.
The restrictions were put in place after UGA was embarrassed by the continued trashing of North Campus and the damage left behind by fans during the 2009 season, which had a lot of night games that extended the tailgating period.
This past season all the home games except the last one had early starts, so there weren’t as many folks looking to tailgate anyway. In the wake of the restrictions, the new ground zero for tailgaters moved to the Meyers quad off Lumpkin Street on South Campus. I cut through there before several games and the area was pretty packed, looking like the North Campus of old with all the tents set up.
And that’s where the possibility of expanded restrictions comes in.
Speaking of the Meyers quad, George Stafford, the university vice president in charge of game day activities, told the Banner-Herald, “We were unhappy with what went on over there, particularly at the last game.” During the daylong tailgating before the Dogs’ only night home game Nov. 27 against Georgia Tech, he said, someone pulled a couch from a nearby residence hall and set it on fire.
And other idiots drove beer bottles into the ground, then broke them, exposing jagged glass. Guess they got tired of playing beer pong.
So what should UGA administrators do about controlling tailgating?
Last season’s restrictions pretty much killed it on North Campus, as about all that was left as an option was a picnic basket and blanket on the ground. That suited UGA officials, who worried the historic green space was being ruined by the game day crush. As I’ve said before, probably the only way full-scale tailgating ever will return to North Campus is on a paid basis.
If the same restrictions on tailgating are applied to the Meyers quad, the result likely will be the same … the tailgaters will move elsewhere on campus. And then what? As the Dawgs Online blog put it this week, the university “can’t keep playing whack-a-mole every year to react to where the mess pops up next.”
Campuswide restrictions like those on North Campus aren’t a realistic option. Tailgating can’t be driven off campus because it has nowhere to go, so UGA needs to deal with it in a way that allows responsible fans to socialize before a game without letting the idiot fringe act like the trash they leave behind.
At the same time, it doesn’t do any good to appeal to tailgaters to act more responsibly, because alcohol and tailgating are inextricably linked, and the ones causing the problems are so drunk they barely know what they’re doing anyway.
It would seem like a reasonable solution would be to have a visible presence of UGA police in the vicinity of tailgating hot spots like Meyers quad and have them patrol regularly and deal with those tailgaters who get out of hand, leaving the others to enjoy themselves as long as they do so responsibly.
Tailgating is a part of the college football experience. Trying to stamp it out ultimately might hurt attendance at games.
What do you think the solution is?
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174 comments Add your comment
1eyedJack
January 29th, 2011
3:42 pm
Yeah, Georgia Tech, a veritable Camelot…in the hood.
Single or Double Wide
January 29th, 2011
3:42 pm
Since a large percentage of UGA fans are drunken, illiterate trailer park trash, what do you expect.
ROLL TIDE!
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
3:47 pm
Why pick on the BAD and not All?
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
3:48 pm
1eyed
You do know USC West is in the Ghetto too right?
1eyedJack
January 29th, 2011
3:51 pm
5150 UOAD, I don’t have to deal with the holier than thou fans of USC West on a daily basis.
1eyedJack
January 29th, 2011
3:55 pm
Someone from Alabama calling UGA fans illiterate trailer park trash is like someone from Georgia calling ‘Bama and Awbun fans big toothed peanut farmers.
Doesn’t Alabama lead the nation in mobile home and dentures production?
HanktheTank
January 29th, 2011
4:00 pm
Bill, this blog is a joke. Pick a side for once. Stop waiting on Tim Tucker to write an article about anything UGA and then headline a blog of your own with a question about the same issue. Lame.
Rusty
January 29th, 2011
4:02 pm
Thank you Hank. This blog really is worthless.
daslicksta
January 29th, 2011
4:02 pm
1st weekend stay at the Clarke County Jail will probably solve most problems that arise…
1eyedJack
January 29th, 2011
4:19 pm
Go do a little snooping Bill and write something positive.
Bill
January 29th, 2011
4:41 pm
Could the University provide more on the scene security and arrest offenders?
Solution
January 29th, 2011
4:52 pm
Do what other venues are doing. Only allow plastic and aluminum beer bottles/cans on the property. Of course you’ll always have your morons who try to do stupid things. If anyone sees anyone doing anything like sticking broken bottles into the ground, kindly walk over and taze them. If that doesn’t work, pull out a 357 and walk them to the nearest security guard.
Solution
January 29th, 2011
4:54 pm
Bite Me
You sound like a typical Cynthia Tucker cult follower. Always trying to find something racist about a comment. Please take your Jesse Jackson type comments over to BET or PMSNBC, loser.
Solution
January 29th, 2011
4:56 pm
“Since a large percentage of UGA fans are drunken, illiterate trailer park trash, what do you expect.”
Alabama wrote the book on trailer trash.
Solution
January 29th, 2011
4:57 pm
“Doesn’t Alabama lead the nation in mobile home and dentures production?”
They also lead the nation in worst education, inbreeding, animal porn, obesity, ugliness, stupidity etc…
Coastaldawg
January 29th, 2011
5:06 pm
The money has ruined it. TV dictates game times and you can’t plan. Hotels over charge and make you buy two nights an every game. Being from S Ga, it isn’t worth it anymore. Giving up season tickets and watching on TV.
Jeff Dantzler
January 29th, 2011
5:15 pm
AU fan- I had lengthy response and am not sure if it will get posted but AU knows how to handle tailgating. They have bathrooms open and everywhere. They have trashcans and access to dumpsters. They rent out primo tailgating spots and provide flat screens for pregame. They just “get it” and we don’t. It has nothing really to do with who attends the games, it is how they are treated when they attend. And people WILL stop going. I know they administration doesn’t believe that, but its true.
Jeff Dantzler
January 29th, 2011
5:16 pm
And I am also calling BS on someone burying fricking glass bottles then breaking them. I’ll bet my next paycheck that that is a wives tail and you can’t provide one (1) person who has conclusive proof that happened.
oakwood dawg
January 29th, 2011
5:18 pm
won’t matter, after the dawgs start 0-2 their won’t be enough people to tailgate to care. so big deal.
papadawg
January 29th, 2011
5:25 pm
Citation, Court & Hefty Fines
Jeff Dantzler
January 29th, 2011
5:32 pm
Citation for what? Not putting trash in a full trash can? Urinating behind a bush when there aren’t adequate bathrooms? Do you people actually go to the games? You have 120,000 people there (sometimes more) with facilities designed to cater to the 30,000 students that go there. We bring in 30 port-o-lets and lock all the buildings. Does that make sense?
jaxdawgfan
January 29th, 2011
5:47 pm
Arrest violators on the spot then make them, Damon Evans and any players arrested in the last 12 months pick up the trash.
saban
January 29th, 2011
5:47 pm
Is this all about choak dawg and all the snakes he bit the head off of and left the bodies in the library? Look he was just getting the team fired up to play cental florida.
i hear for Boise state he is beheading a deer?
Sergeant Joe Friday, LAPD
January 29th, 2011
5:55 pm
I don’t even go to games anymore because of the sorry-a$$ drunks.
GA born and bred
January 29th, 2011
5:55 pm
I was born and raised in Georgia and absolutely despise the idiots that are the “Bulldog Nation”. They are either spoiled brats, big-fish-in-a-small-pond yahoos from small towns, or preppy future Lawyers or GA legislators. Sorry is as sorry does and GA fans are the sorriest bunch out there.
Sanitize and they won't show p
January 29th, 2011
6:26 pm
How many posts actually get posted?
Fast Eddie
January 29th, 2011
6:33 pm
I’ve been a guest of friends at Ole Miss who tailgated in The Grove and everybody did a great job of self-policing their own trash the times I was there. I have season tickets to UF games and don’t tailgate because they have a pre-game buffet for us before the game but I usually stop by a friend’s tailgating area before the game for a beer. Their place is always policed well including the times I’ve dropped by after the game. The university puts out lots of trash containers and collects the sacks periodically when they have evening game start times. They have the same restrictions on kegs in tailgating areas and the police will arrest you for having an open beer can or bottle if you leave the tailgating area even for a short period of time. I don’t know what the answer is at UGA. I’ve been to a few games there but didn’t tailgate. The only place I’ve seen people getting drunk is at the UF/UGA game in Jax. but many of them tailgate throughout the game and watch it on TV in their tailgate area.
spank da butt
January 29th, 2011
7:03 pm
AU Fan
January 29th, 2011
2:45 pm
Funny, I’ve never seen any significant amount of trash on the ground on rowdy fan behavior at Auburn games. Hmmm.
Well all the trash is in the stadium seats. Hmmm. That is the sound the AU coed makes when she goes below the belt.
bottom line
January 29th, 2011
7:18 pm
Most of the trash is because of all the Rednecks who never went to Georgia.
Unfortunately, this puts a Major Negative on the Dawgs !
Okeefe/Bob
January 29th, 2011
7:22 pm
Read most of the above.Pigs are Pigs. I can’t beleive the ugly reaction of these fans.Are you kidding me? Do you people have no respect?
Lugnut
January 29th, 2011
7:29 pm
Simple – ban the fraternities. They only exist to make the college experience palatable for those that shouldn’t be there anyway. Same for the sororities, but they at least serve the purpose of attracting the attractive female to college. Seriously – serious drunkeness is the purpose of the fraternity expereince on game day. Get rid of them.
JGWOOD
January 29th, 2011
7:30 pm
With an ID you can rent a specific spot for a small amount of money that will pay for those workers monitering tailgating, the clean-up effort afterwards and the restoration of the landscaping. If a particular spot is damaged beyond normal use, then the moniters have the identification and address of the renter where they can send the bill.
Is anyone really surprised?
January 29th, 2011
7:31 pm
Once again, we’re made to believe that Georgia fans are out of control animals, unlike those at LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, etc…where these types of restrictions don’t exist.
This is playing out exactly as Mickey Adams wants it to. Unless everyone behaves like they’re at a Harvard-Yale game, the banning will continue.
Jeff Dantzler
January 29th, 2011
7:36 pm
Is anyone, you’re exactly right. Ultimately what will happen is we’ll have to pay to tailgate and the University won’t change anything. In other words, they won’t have any more bathrooms or trashcans or “investment” they’ll just charge for the same grass. Just tear down 60,000 of the seats and turn the stadium into Duke. And let “born and raised” in Georgia and his 25,000 friends go up there.
saban
January 29th, 2011
7:48 pm
Why Georgia fans are out of control animals. Nothing knew there.
Empty the Walmart and scratch a Georgia fan.
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
7:48 pm
hi
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
7:51 pm
UGA is a DRUNK TANK
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
7:53 pm
#1 party school and #1 in Date R not reported. Daddy I really love him! I don’t know his name but he was so nice at the ???? frat party and he said he LOVES me.
The Ghost of Wally Butts
January 29th, 2011
7:58 pm
EUREKA! Here is the perfect solution…
Allow tailgating only on the grounds of the Clarke County Detention Facility….that way the ThugDawg faithful can see their favorite ThugDawg players up close and personal!
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
8:00 pm
Hi BILL let it go Have some GUTS
Mark Ingram's Tutor
January 29th, 2011
8:09 pm
“Nothing knew there.” Does that mean your inbred a$$ “knew” nothing or did you mean to say “new there.” Or perhaps a combination of both?
S.E. Dawg
January 29th, 2011
8:14 pm
oakwood dawg, I disagree. I feel our first game for 2011 will be our finest moment.
Music City Dawg
January 29th, 2011
8:20 pm
Rope the area off. Charge admittance to the area at $20 per head. With that money, hire a private company to clean it up afters. And do not allow glass in the area.
The Watergirl
January 29th, 2011
9:56 pm
We have a tailgate that can get to upwards of 60 to 75 ppl on a big night game and for some reason we are able to keep our trash picked up and just as clean as we left it!!
Best idea would be to have more security on hand at the hott spots and take every person arrested for alcohol offenses for that weekend and require them to show up on Sunday morning at 7 a.m. to 12, make them pick up trash leftover by the trash that put it there!!!
lemons into lemonade
January 29th, 2011
9:59 pm
Since we will surely have 7 to 8 suspensions each season, ..have those players assigned to trash & cleanup duty for the tailgaters on the gamedays that they r suspended. In full uniform too. Might actually learn something and also see what the fan experience is like as well. Instead of the Dawg Walk on gameday, they get to do the Dawg Walk of Shame. Bet u within a year, suspensions drop almost none!
BehindEnemyLines
January 29th, 2011
10:07 pm
re: “What do you think the solution is?” Attract a higher class of fans who don’t have to act like drunken hillbillies in order to think they’re having a good time.
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
10:52 pm
Daddy always gets drunk at the UGA games and lets me and Sister mom Dance on the Pole for dollars and PBR. That ain’t wrong when it fills my Red Thong. Go Dawgs Lixks Um.
5150 UOAD
January 29th, 2011
10:59 pm
what?
Gen Neyland
January 29th, 2011
11:08 pm
AltDawg : Re your 1415 post…Good one.
RED DOG 77
January 29th, 2011
11:22 pm
Answer ?……….Grid-off all tailgating areas, charge a reasonable fee to “rent” these spaces, alow just about everything except glass beer bottles……….use “rental proceeds” to hire a crew to clean-up afterwards………….put drunk idiots in jail !……….go watch the game, and “Hunker down, you hairy Dogs”……………GATA !!!!