Neighborhoods Join Day One to Push For Banning Beer Bongs, Drinking Funnels at Rose Bowl Tailgating

A measure to ban beer bongs and drinking funnels at large events at the Rose Bowl will soon be proposed at a City Council committee meeting.

Day One, a nonprofit that researches and brings awareness to public health, has partnered with several neighborhood associations and city organizations to target safe alcohol consumption at large events.

After an assessment of the San Gabriel Valley looking at the main drug trends in the area, large events were singled out as an area where higher underage binge drinking occurred.

“It also has a regional impact, people drive from all over southern California to go to events at the Rose Bowl and then they leave and drive back,” Environmental Prevention Director for Day One Wes Reutimann said.

Day One has proposed a number of proactive actions and enforcement options, many which have already been implemented at the Rose Bowl.

One gaining traction after Thursday’s Rose Bowl Operating Company meeting would codify the use of a beer funnel or beer bong as an infraction.

The current “Tailgating Guidelines,” which get emailed to every ticket holder, already ban the use of drinking paraphernalia including beer pong, beer bongs and the extreme “Bongzilla” that holds a 24 pack with six competitive drinking tubes.

“Officers can come around and ask that it’s put away but they bring it back out. It’s not unlawful. It’s a bit of a catch 22. An ordinance would enhance efforts of course,” Rose Bowl General Manager Darryl Dunn said.

Reutimann called it the “low hanging fruit” that can be seen and could be enforced better if the items were breaking municipal code.

“Just like you get a ticket speeding, you get a ticket for using something that is dangerous to public health. It propagates dangerous behavior,” Reutimann said. “There is no way to possibly consume alcohol responsibly out of a funnel.”

With recommendation from the RBOC including positive remarks from its President Victor Gordo, district 5 representative, the list of recommendations including a city wide policy to restrict beer funnels will go to the August 17 Public Safety meeting.

“We all ultimately want the same thing,” Dunn said, “But we don’t see eye to eye on everything.”

The primary differing point is that while Day One would prefer to ban kegs from Rose Bowl events, Rose Bowl staff prefer kegs with cups rather than plastic or glass bottles that get thrown on the ground where kids play sports.

In conducting surveys over the past two years, Reutimann reported that the majority of the fans know the tailgating rules. The one thing most got wrong is a majority thought that kegs already are not permitted since most sporting events do not allow a keg.

“The Rose Bowl belongs to all of us. What are the best practices and safeguards we can put in place to make sure our community is safe,” Day One Executive Director Christy Zamani said.

As the City looks ahead to a potential music festival, Geoffrey Baum, president of the West Pasadena Residents’ Association (WPRA) said he wants to work “cooperatively and communicatively” with the RBOC to ensure future events are done responsibly.

“I don’t want to have happen in Pasadena what happened in Pomona this last weekend. If we can’t make sure we are enforcing those policies, we shouldn’t consider another large-scale event at the Rose Bowl,” Baum said.

Two young women died at the Pomona Fairplex last Saturday, one a UCLA undergraduate after a suspected drug overdose at a music festival.

Nina Chomsky, President of the Linda Vista/Annandale Neighborhood Association, said the neighbors are concerned about liability to the city, about good public health practices, the possibilities of alcohol poisoning and enforcement.

“What we’re really concerned about are impaired Rose Bowl attendees. They come, drink for hours. They’re getting in their cars, then their driving on our neighborhood streets, our city streets, our freeways,” Chomsky said.

She added that, “looking at a bunch of arrests is very misleading; enforcement is the major issue here.”

The Rose Bowl already implemented one suggestion to have alcohol management teams for high risk events, which were used at the July 25th Kenny Chesney concert. At the event 26 minors were cited for underage drinking.

“When we don’t have the capacity to enforce the policy’s we already have we won’t see the arrests.” Zamani said.

Since the 2011 southern California summit of fan behavior, the Rose Bowl introduced bike patrol teams and fan assistance booths.

Day One previous initiatives that were implemented include a re-write of tailgating guidelines, fan texting in parking areas, prohibiting use of amplified sound, and disposing of charcoal safely.

One of the current suggestions is to create a Family Zone in front of Kidspace which would be an alcohol free zone during tailgating. Rose Bowl staff has already begun talks with Kidspace about implementing this.

As the city looks at pursuing more large events like the Arts and Music Festival, Day One is looking to improve the public transit options and satellite shuttling to help curb post event drunk driving in another way.

For more information about the studies completed by Day One visit www.rad-sgv.org/environmental-scans.html

The Pasadena Public Safety Committee Meeting will be held August 17 at 4:15 p.m. inside the City Council Chambers.