Last week, the state's Alcoholic Beverage Control agency approved University of Arkansas vendor Sodexo's permit to sell beer and wine at Reynolds Razorback Stadium in a club-seating area and in luxury suites available to about 11,000 fans out of the maximum 72,000 the Fayetteville stadium can hold.
Mixing one's love of the Razorbacks with his love of adult libation has, until now, been officially frowned upon by the authorities in the University of Arkansas' athletic department. The people or companies who can afford the luxury suites have been permitted to stock their own alcoholic beverages as long as no one crossed the imaginary boundary that divides "wet" Razorback Stadium and "dry" Razorback Stadium.
Of course, the reasoning for keeping the vast majority of the football venue "dry" has had a lot to do with public safety, no doubt with a dose of old-fashioned morality thrown in. It's also usually been considered wise not to mix alcohol with a crowd of people pitted emotionally against a visiting crowd of people was they watch mostly non-mortal combat between their favored teams on the gridiron.
There's also the message to students, those young charges there to get an education, to keep in mind. Remember a few years back when the UA nanny state banned tobacco of all varieties from campus? It wasn't just limited to certain areas or just to smoking. No, the powers that be ruled an educational institution should not permit adults to engage in a lawful activity its leaders deemed politically incorrect.
But in the current circumstance, permissiveness seems the order of the day, at least for certain people who can afford to be part of "the club." Alcohol is no longer the scourge of society. The Baptist influence has been eroded by different denomination -- $10s, $20s, $50s and so forth. All those previous reasons alcohol absolutely, positively cannot be allowed for the good of our students' educational experience -- ahh, forget about it.
This looks, to me, like the Oaklawn-ification of Razorback Stadium. What does this have to do with horse racing? Not much directly. It has to do with Arkansas' occasional penchant for pretending something isn't what it really is.
Oaklawn is Arkansas' thoroughbred race track in Hot Springs. Or it used to be. Now it's a casino with horse racing in the back yard a couple of months out of the year. Its owner and manager figured out years ago they wanted slot machines to shore up the bottom line as earnings on horse racing declined. Other states started approving casinos, and along came states with lotteries. Suddenly, one didn't have to go "feed the horses" to let gambling suck cash out of his bank account.
But Arkansas law forbade casinos, and still does. So instead of slot machines, Oaklawn developed "electronic games of skill" and an uncanny ability to convince lawmakers the two machines weren't the same thing. It didn't matter that the only real skill the user needed for either machine was an ability to let go of his money.
Looks like a casino. Sounds like a casino. But (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) it's not, because we say it's not.
At Razorback Stadium -- outside and, to a lesser degree, inside -- alcohol has been present for years even though the official policy has been prohibition out of public safety concerns. Nonetheless, law enforcement and school personnel turned a blind eye to the consumption of alcohol. It's only when a drunken idiot goes out of his way to prove he's intoxicated that the crack-down happens.
So now, the hypocrisy is more official. Alcohol is a laudable and desirable part of the game day experience for the select, except out in the open where everyone can see it. Adults who are part of the unwashed (unless it's raining) masses can't handle a little beer or wine, but those club-seating folks? Serve'em up, barkeep.
Razorback Stadium, I suspect, will end up like Oaklawn in another way. Hot Springs' only casino -- er, electronic games of skill facility -- is now adding another 18,000 square feet and another 500 player positions to its non-slot machine slot machines. By the time it's done, Oaklawn will be bigger than Big River Steel, to paraphrase Hyman Roth.
Likewise, the university will start with 11,000 potential buyers of wine and beer in "private" areas of the state's biggest public facility, then it will figure out ways to expand its new-found revenue.
Is there something wrong with that? Not at all, except for the continuing hypocrisy that what once was forbidden but permitted is now OK for a select group of people who pay a lot for tickets, but can't be handled by the other adults stuck soberly screaming "woooooo, pig, sooie."
GREG HARTON IS OPINION PAGE EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
Commentary on 06/23/2014