Stadium Ban on Bottles and Cans Is Now Official

For years, police officers at Anaheim Stadium have barred fans from bringing in containers such as bottles, cans or thermos bottles--regardless of their contents.

An empty bottle or object could be used as a missile that could cause injuries, stadium officials reasoned.

Savvy fans, however, recently challenged the no-container policy and asked officers to cite a city ordinance prohibiting the items. There was no such ordinance.

So, to make local law conform to existing stadium policy, the City Council on Tuesday approved expansion of an ordinance that bars bringing alcoholic beverages into the stadium to also include a ban on all containers.

“Unfortunately, the way the ordinance was written years ago, we were, in effect, enforcing a policy, but we didn’t have the ordinance to back us up,” stadium operations manager Greg Smith said.

In a Sept. 23 memo to the city, William I. Turner, stadium general manager, said the potential “is great” that a bottle, can, thermos or other container could be used as a projectile that would “cause injury to either patrons or athletes.”

The council approved the change Tuesday without discussion.