Strict new tailgating rules attempt to keep students safe
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New code will no longer allow students to bring alcohol into games
Administrators are cracking down on behavioral issues at student tailgates, with a set of new rules that promise to cut out much of what has identified the activity at UNLV.
The regulations will ban students from bringing alcohol into the tailgating space, require ID checks at the gate to Star Nursery Field, prohibit students from driving vehicles into the area and limit the privilege of amplified sound to CSUN and approved vendors.
The new code will be enforced by the Office of Student Conduct and UNLV Police. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department will patrol areas not designated for tailgating.
Though money was spent this year already to bolster security at football games, no additional cost will be incurred in enforcing the rules.
“We want you to have fun at the tailgate,” said Juanita Fain, UNLV vice president for student affairs, speaking to CSUN Monday. “We want you to go to the game, but we also want you to be safe.”
The changes come after administrators observed what they deemed to be dangerous behavior among students, especially at the Oct. 2 football game versus the University of Nevada, Reno.
“I don’t know how many of you went to the UNLV-UNR game, but it was horrible,” Fain told CSUN. “It was very dangerous.”
Alleged dangers included extreme inebriation, drinking and driving, and an inability to move crowds in the case of an emergency because of noise and chaotic massing of students.
“The problem is that people are showing up to the 4 [p.m.] tailgate at 3:55 and leaving the game at 7:05 [p.m.] completely obliterated,” said CSUN Chief Counsel Jon Goldman, who served last year as director of Campus Life and organized the CSUN tailgates.
Undergraduate Student Body President David Rapoport has opposed the new code, arguing the restrictions represent a move “from one extreme to the other,” explained that a lot will change as a result of the policy.
“Before, the field was just one big area, and cars could pull up, set up tables and play drinking games,” Rapoport said, explaining that now, the tailgating area will be split in two, with the west side designated for student use and the east reserved for existing tailgate pass holders.
Registered tailgaters will be able to pull vehicles onto the east-side lot but no amplified sound will be allowed there.
Rapoport said he will “have to take a black eye” for the issue, explaining that his protests on behalf of what he believes is a more balanced, student-friendly stance, have not been accepted.
“This is something that is completely over my head,” Rapoport said. “Dr. Fain and I have had multiple arguments about this. I have had multiple arguments with the president of the university about this.”
To a question from a CSUN senator as to whether the administration would consider plans of compromise if students presented them, Fain said, “Of course we would.”
But, she warned, a change to the new plan is unlikely.
Still, Rapoport solicited the input of student leaders in solving the issue.
“If you guys have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them,” he said. “I’d love to go back to the table and say, ‘Here are these 10 ideas.’”
CSUN Elections Director Sarah Saenz asserted that the revisions seem to have come out of nowhere, with little student input.
“I feel like this is just going to happen,” she said.
The primary concern voiced among student representatives at the Monday meeting centered on game attendance.
“Yes, it will be safer but what if people stop going?” asked Senate President Pro Tempore Ricardo Casillas, of the college of business.
He asked for a “backup plan,” to be applied if attendance drops sharply as a result of the new code.
“We hope that the main reason students are coming is to go to the game,” Fain said. “We don’t have a backup plan right now.”
Goldman predicted a drop in attendance but argued in favor of the regulations.
“This is the best thing that could happen right now,” Goldman said. “The last thing we need to hear is that something happened to a student, maybe one of our own.”
He encouraged CSUN representatives to “take [the changes] in stride.”
Phil, you’re completely ignorant to the college life style. Go to the game after the tailgate or don’t go to tailgate at all? Thats ridiculous. Who is to say that we can’t have fun at the tailgate and NOT want to pay money to get embarrassed in a game of football. To me, you just sound like a grumpy stuck up old man that has no grasp on how times have CHANGED. Kids like to party now a days. Get over it. They’ve been trying to regulate the tailgating rules for years now. It never works. Everyone’s gonna go, get drunk, leave, then get drunk somewhere else. End of story. These rules have never stopped us and they won’t now. Party on Rebels!
It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a UNLV game so it’ll be interesting to go after several years… but something tells me it still won’t be a tenth of a tailgate party as going to a UGA game. (They often start on Thursdays…)… Or any real football school for that matter.
If there is an issue with a few idiots that can’t hold their booze…. maybe they should be dealt with instead of copping out and taking the easy route out to sell vendor spots to sell overpriced beer.
In a city where the Police do a pretty good job of handling a couple of hundred thousand drunks every New Years Eve… I find it hard to believe that some juvenile delinquents can’t be handled.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Lately the university has been making too many extreme reactionary decisions. I understand the university’s desire to create a safer tailgating environment, but this is complete fascism. Students of legal age won’t be able to bring alcohol into the tailgate area? So you can charge them $6 for a beer OUTSIDE the game? Now, any students who plan on attending, if any, will get trashed before they drive to the stadium. Drunken riots where bottles are thrown at everything and anyone? Quit exaggerating. How about we put a stop to all the drunken fights and riots (as you put it) INSIDE the stadium that occur at every UNLV-Hawaii football game, or UNLV-BYU basketball game? You cannot completely separate drunks from fans of athletics. I see just as many drunk 30 year old meatheads getting rowdy at any given university supported sporting event as I do at the football tailgates. The term “dry tailgate” sounds just as “good” as the phrases “no student support,” “lost revenue,” and “football program cut.” The university has lost MILLIONS of dollars to keep the football program afloat.
>>Well first of all good luck with getting people to come to the game AT ALL now.<> Don’t worry now nearly NO ONE is going to go. If UNLV was a team that won more then TWICE in a season then maybe we’d go but we are TERRIBLE!!!!<> Now all these vendors that are paying the school to come to the tailgates are going with withdraw when there is no one there.<> Take away hard alcohol but allow the damn kids to drink their beer and alcohol within the same alcohol percentage.<> And the CSUN president’s cabinet doesn’t have to stay and watch their school team getting TOTALLY KILLED! I don’t blame them.<>Good Job UNLV for totally shooting yourself in the foot.<<
The tailgate has been shooting UNLV in the foot for decades. Its time to clean it up. Don't like it? Then leave. It will be a safe place for students, fans, and alumni to come and have a good time before the football game. The days of drunken riots where bottles are thrown at everything and everyone are over. You want to drink to excess? Go do it off campus somewhere. Disappointed that there is no club atmosphere? Then go to a club. This is a place for UNLV football fans, not for drunks. Don't like it? Tough. Want to push it? Well, how does the sound of "dry tailgate" sound to you? With the liability that UNLV has faced for years I bet you its being considered.
So Nicole, in sum, come to the tailgate if you want to come to the game; but don't come to the tailgate if ALL you want to do is come to the tailgate. Its not for you anymore. Its for students, fans, families, and alumni who are there for football. Go take the drunken patry where it belongs-The Strip.
Well first of all good luck with getting people to come to the game AT ALL now. Don’t worry now nearly NO ONE is going to go. If UNLV was a team that won more then TWICE in a season then maybe we’d go but we are TERRIBLE!!!! Now all these vendors that are paying the school to come to the tailgates are going with withdraw when there is no one there. Take away hard alcohol but allow the damn kids to drink their beer and alcohol within the same alcohol percentage. And the CSUN president’s cabinet doesn’t have to stay and watch their school team getting TOTALLY KILLED! I don’t blame them.
Good Job UNLV for totally shooting yourself in the foot.
The students who are getting plastered are not going to the game. They leave that area of town when the “game is starting” horn sounds to attend another party somewhere else where alcohol is served. At the last home game, even part of the CSUN president’s cabinet was caught stating that they were leaving the tailgate area when the game was about to begin so they could attend a diffrent alcohol party off campus.
I’m glad steps are finally being taken to stop the violence, drunk driving, underage drinking, and extreem intoxication that has been a standard at the tailgate field for years. Something else they need to do is separate the fans from different schools. Its dumb to pile students from UNLV and another school in the same space-you only invite violence.