AA.com gets response over Stadium water ban
Up to 130+ comments last I looked. Quite a few snide comments from each extreme ("can't be a true fan "all in" if you're complaining," or "what's another $4/bottle on top of the stack of pesos you've already paid?"). There were a few witty comments, a few well thought comments and a decent amount of anger, for sure.
The reality is, the AD is grasping at straws to justify a very lame policy change. (And as I posted in the other water bottle thread, I think the ban was part of an agreement with Sodexho or other vendors - Absopure and Chuck Woollery?)
At the end of the day, the fans who want to get something through the gates will use creativity and ingenuity to complete the task.
Finally, thinking the terrorist angle, and having wondered, what could one do at Michigan Stadium...hard to imagine a large scale shoe-bomb/anthrax/sarin/semtex/liquid underwear bomb getting in and doing the damage (aluminum skinned aircraft with a flimsy jute fiberboard panel interiors are a different story). It'd be much easier to get something over/through the wrought iron fences, or stash the goods prior to Saturday (dunno if the Michigan State Police ever have the dogs walk through...never read/never seen it). (This was another cute comment on AA.com, as was the gun towers comment and lack of ANG support getting to the stadium in time to stop a rogue banner-toting Piper Cub stolen from the Washtenaw County International Aerodrome.)
I don't know who the resident Carl the Groundskeeper is within the AD, but someone has to stop smoking the hybrid, and realize who's coming to the game, why they're coming and what is their true intent for that bottled water.
there have been a number of incidents involving homemade bombs in water bottles surreptitiously placed on residents' lawns. I'm wondering if those have anything to do with this new policy, or at least if that's the attempted rationale.
I don't really care one way or another, since the only stadiums I've ever been able to bring a water bottle into were those used for DCI shows.
+1 for the DCI comment
You can bring in water to ND stadium and Ross Ade. There are two at the top of my head. I am sure there are more.
But Comerica Park allows bottled water to be brought into the stadium.
When I talked to someone in the athletic department, they said that this was brought up in their meetings, so it did have some sort of effect, but wasn't the driving force.
I'm pretty sure most people would be fine with waiting an extra five minutes in line if we could continue taking bottles into the game.
All those years of smuggling tequila, whiskey and soju into the stadium appear to have taught me a practical skill.
This has got to be one of the stupidest bans in the history of mankind. Hoodie + no obvious bulges and you can get anything into that stadium. Also avoid things that might trigger a metal detector if for whatever reason you get pulled over for some wanding.
Continue to bombard the athletic department with complaints, before and during the season. They have said that they will continue to monitor the situation throughout the season. As long as people continue to complain, they may eventually relent.
The athletic department does bring up a good point though. A good majority of the top 10 largest stadiums ban water bottles, with the exception of the Rose Bowl and maybe Bama's stadium. And many of those stadiums are in hotter climates than ours.
Here are e-mail addresses for Mary Sue Coleman and each regent. http://www.regents.umich.edu/about/regents.html Suggest you devote most your energies there. They were the ones that killed off naming rights to the Ohio State game a few years ago.
we have to take our shoes off to get into the stadium.
wait till they start with the full cavity searches....
In fairness, the official response did not say that checking bottles took a long time in the past, but that it would start to take a long time from here on out due to "new security measures." The article did not entirely make this clear. If this is indeed the reason, I'm curious to know where these security measures are coming from - the AD, the university, or the government?
In any event, I bet this policy will be reversed by 2011 after the inevitable outcry (which is going to get much, much louder after fans have to actually experience the ban).
Why on earth would American Airlines care at all about this? Is it a water bottle ban sponsored by the airline industry???
(sorry, it's the frequent flyer in me)
All of my feigned internet outrage about Lindsay Lohan getting out of jail was running out, at least i have this now. hopefully tomorrow will bring some sort of minor catastrophe, perhaps involving a politician for me to direct my rage.
I have so much anger and so very few places to direct it.