Duke Considering Alcohol Sales At Basketball Games

A major change could be coming to Cameron Indoor Stadium and Wallace Wade as alcohol sales may be on the way as they are now in Chapel Hill.

Certainly it’s another revenue stream but it comes with real risks.

We went to a football game at NC State several years ago and saw students brawling in the Carter-Finley stands before tumbling down the stairs. Some of their friends made it clear they were both drinking heavily.

We had a State friend once who told us that the difference between Duke and State crowds is that State fans get drunker and are generally louder but can’t coordinate their efforts like Duke fans can.

Hey, it was his opinion of his camp, not ours. Just relaying it.

Obviously those students snuck it in. And that has always happened and always will. You can go all the way back to John Adams’s son and he went off to college and had a big time (and later died of alcoholism), thus starting a long historical tradition of embarrassing presidential relatives.

You could easily make an argument that restricting alcohol to college students contributes to binge drinking and drunk driving since alcohol is now mostly consumed off campus. And you could also make an argument that moving the drinking age to 21 has backfired and caused more problems than it has solved. We’re not saying that’s our argument but look around and you’ll find passionate debate on the subject. Camille Paglia is particularly keen on this.

And at some point with alcohol sales controlled by the universities, someone will leave a Triangle college football or basketball game after having a few too many and liability will be an issue. We’re sure that all three schools have focused sharply on liability issues as they evolve policies because that will certainly end up in court.

On the other hand, the university has sold alcohol for years before games at Club Blue Devil, and it’s by far the drug of choice in the Western World. It seems reasonable to allow responsible adults the option to have a drink while they enjoy ACC sports. There will be periodic issues as everyone adjusts though.