New proposal for the TCF Bank Stadium: Alcohol will be sold only to Gopher boosters who've paid for luxury seats. It'll cost five bucks for a tepid, half-flat flagon of beer; other thirsty patrons will go without. Or smuggle it inside in flasks, or in their bloodstream.
They're trying to strike a compromise between the needs of the Responsible Patrons and Flaming Youth, of course. If you sell beer everywhere in the stadium, what stops a senior from buying three brews for 18-year-olds? The sense of shame that you're still hanging with 18-year-olds, perhaps.
You could require an ID with each individual purchase, but then someone would buy a tub o'suds and ration it out. Oh, they could sign a pledge: I will not share this beer with anyone underaged, lest special lasers embedded in the new stadium vaporize me on the spot. You'd only have to vaporize a few to get the point across. The parents would complain, but you'd have a signed letter of consent.
It still seems a bit undemocratic, though. And it won't stop some from seeking the condition of gape-jawed stupefaction they regard as an essential component of the football experience. It is difficult to overestimate the ingenuity of collegians who seek beer: we would have landed on the moon 10 years earlier if we'd put a keg up there and told the MIT undergrads that the first one up there got the whole thing. Allow beer at the game and some students intent on being boneless by the third quarter will invent 60-yard invisible straws so they can poach from a distance.
Perhaps the adults could send a message, and forgo a bump as well?
What would be the harm if the U just banned it altogether? Smaller revenues, yes, but --
Ah. Right! Sorry for taking up your time.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz
