Padres Ask Stadium Concessionaire to Stop Beer Sales During Late Innings

Padre officials, saying they want to maintain a family atmosphere at the team’s home games, on Thursday asked the stadium concessionaire to halt beer sales during the late innings.

During a meeting of the Stadium Authority Board of Governors, team officials recommended that beer sales at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium be banned after the seventh or eighth inning of a game.

Although there have been no serious problems this year with rowdy fans, the Padres want to make sure baseball games keep their family atmosphere, said Elten Schiller, the club’s senior vice president in charge of business operations. He described the proposal as a “preventive measure.”

But representatives for Service America Corp., the stadium concessionaire, say checks against excessive drinking are already in place.

Bud Cappello, general manager of the company, said concession stand salespeople already know they are not to serve “obviously intoxicated” fans. Another deterrent is the price charged for beer at the stadium, he said. A 16-ounce beer costs $1.75, and a 24-ounce beer costs $2.75.

After the meeting, both sides agreed to discuss the matter again.

Several other stadiums have been experimenting with ways to control fan violence, sometimes by restricting beer sales late in the game or by limiting the number of beers that may be purchased by any one person at one time. In some cases, beer sales have been banned in trouble-prone areas of a stadium.