Back in September, Louisiana State University football fans made headlines for claiming they would “drink Syracuse dry” when the Tigers visited the Syracuse Orange on September 26th.
Now, the school and football program is making headlines again in regards to drinking and tailgating..
The school has proposed the following new rules: no more glass bottles, drinking games, funnels, beer kegs or alcoholic party punches, couches, TVs or indoor furniture and no tents more than 10 feet by 10 feet.
It’s important to note however that this would only affect LSU students, not the alums and citizens of Baton Rouge.
“All we want to do is make it safer and tamp down on underage drinking,” said Jason Droddy, LSU vice president of external affairs. “We merely ask that student organizations to sign up for space on the parade ground.”
During a town hall meeting on campus on Tuesday night, some students spoke out against the possible changes.
Students were asked to give their opinions on different scenarios proposed by the school on how to regular alcohol at tailgates. One option requires students to register their tailgates and use third-party vendors to serve all the alcohol as a way of making sure it only goes to people of drinking age. Another scenario would require all student organizations to buy their alcohol from a LSU organized vendor.
“We understand that tailgating is a very cherished tradition,” said Kathy Jones, an LSU Campus Life official who moderated the student town hall. “But we also understand that there have been increases in alcohol use and transports to the hospital.”
Some students were bothered by the proposed initiatives, but still said they would drink regardless.
On the other hand, some students tried to reason with the university. At a school like LSU with over 30,000 students and over 400 organizations on campus, requiring them to go through a vendor or not drink at all is realistically impossible.
LSU however does have a policy that requires organizations to register tailgates, but it isn’t enforced, as students pointed out. The Tigers aren’t the only SEC school with similar policies either.
“If you’re just a group of people with your family and some of your roommates getting together, no they wouldn’t have to register,” LSU’s Dean of Students Maria Fuentes-Martin said. “But if you’re the biology club, you would.”
Without assuming anything, it’s hard to believe the biology club is causing the issues and not the fraternities and sororities.
“I know fraternities have a common stereotype of wanting to get drunk all of the time,” Chris Dedo, chapter president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, said. “But it’s a camaraderie of us being together, and that doesn’t just end when you’re a student.”
Dedo pointed out that alumni will often come back and tailgate with their fraternity before football games.
SEC football is a different animal than the other Power Five conferences, and so is its tailgating. It’s safe to say this won’t be an easy situation to fix down in Baton Rouge.
