Incidents at DKR haven't increased with introduction of alcohol sales

Officials with the University of Texas Police Department said they did not see a definitive change in alcohol-related arrests during the 2015 football season, when DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium began selling alcoholic beverages to the general public for the first time.

After receiving support from UT President Greg Fenves and Chancellor Bill McRaven, the decision to sell alcohol to the general public at football games was made in June. With this decision, UT joined West Virginia University and became the second school in the Big XII to allow the sale of alcohol at on-campus football games.

“Alcohol had always been served at DKR, it just wasn’t in the general areas,” said David Carter, chief of police for UTPD. “When we looked at our stats over this past year, we didn’t see a change in terms of the number of arrests that we had to make.”

Lt. Amber Calvert, who is in charge of special event security, echoed Carter stating that alcohol-related incidents at the stadium did not change with the implementation of the alcohol sale policy. Calvert said in her experience she sees a higher trend in arrests with higher temperatures.

“The biggest thing for us is the heat,” Calvert said. “The more games we have in the heat, the more incidents we are going to have. Alcohol and heat certainly do not mix.”

When the idea to serve alcohol in the stadium to the general public was proposed originally, UTPD did not advocate for one option or the other. However, Carter said his department did agree to monitor the effects that the new measure would have on the game day routine, but the department did not change procedures.

“We didn’t add any extra officers or change any of the security protocols based on the sale of alcohol,” Calvert said. “For us, the laws are the same.”

Calvert said it is impossible for UTPD to know if the alcohol policy deterred fans from smuggling alcohol into the stadium because it is difficult to document the number of fans who were successful in their efforts.

“I don’t know why they would need to smuggle it in anymore,” Calvert said.

Antonio Soriano, a senior biology major, said the policy did not negatively affect the game day experience.

“I don’t think that the game day experience was any less enjoyable,” Soriano said. “If anything it allowed me and my group of friends to not feel the need to drink so much before the game, because we had the ability to purchase it during the game.”

Alcohol sales at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium topped $1.8 million during the 2015 season, according to a report from the Houston Chronicle. This is more than triple the $516,000 that West Virginia University has averaged over the past three seasons, according to ESPN.com. Alcohol sales accounted for over half of the food and beverage sales at DKR, which totaled $3.7 million. Miller Lite totaled $493,856 in alcohol sales, making the domestic beer a fan favorite.

Carter said they would continue to monitor how effective their current protocol is in the future.

“I don’t have anything definitive to say it was better or worse, but we need to keep watching it,” Carter said.