Eagles to Lock Stadium Luxury Box Windows

The Philadelphia Eagles plan to lock windows shut on luxury boxes at Veterans Stadium in the final home game and any home playoff games to protect occupants from fans who may be angered that they can’t buy beer.

The NFL club said the “security move” was prompted by the outbreak of snowball-throwing that erupted during last Sunday’s game between the Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys and the subsequent ban on alcohol in most of the stadium except for the luxury suites.

“It’s purely precautionary,” Eagles President Harry Gamble said. “It’s a safety factor because, frankly, we’re still not sure how to control the people sitting down below.

“The problems with alcohol abuse and snowball-throwing have not been in the suites. Those are confined areas, and we can monitor them and we have access to them. We may not be able to control the 65,000 in the stands, but we can monitor the 1,200 in the suites.”

Alcohol won’t be allowed in the stands in the season finale Dec. 24 against Phoenix. It also will be banned if the Eagles, tied for first place in the NFC East, host any playoff games. But the ban does not cover the Penthouse Suites, luxury boxes around the upper rim of the stadium, and the stadium restaurant.

Gamble said the shutting of box windows is primarily for protection of suite-holders in the event of any “confrontations” between them and spectators seated below.

“We don’t want any unfortunate interaction between them, any harassment,” said Lou Scheinfeld, director of the suites.

Exemptions from the alcohol ban for the suites and the Stadium Club have been criticized by some as discriminatory.

“This exemption is not meant because those people are the big shots of the world,” Gamble said. “I would admit that to some people it might appear that way. But they are not the ones causing trouble.”

The Eagles realized $8 million last year from the suites. Asked what he thinks might happen if the club also banned alcohol from the suites, Scheinfeld said, “If we didn’t have a championship-caliber team, we would lose a lot of suite-holders.”

“Dollars and cents enter into this, obviously, and I wouldn’t deny that,” Gamble said. “But if they were raising hell up there, we’d shut them off.”