TAILGATING BILL Drinking on YSU campus? House says yes, with limits

Pro sports teams and other colleges could take advantage of a new liquor permit.
COLUMBUS -- A bill that would allow Youngstown State University to set aside an area on campus where fans can legally drink alcohol while tailgating at Penguins football games won easy approval in the Ohio House of Representatives on Wednesday.
After an 82-10 House vote, the bill sponsored by state Rep. Kenneth A. Carano, an Austintown Democrat, is on its way to the Senate.
The bill would create a T-1 temporary liquor permit that would allow colleges and universities with full-time enrollments of 15,000 students or less or professional sports teams to allow consumption of beer and liquor in restricted areas on property they own or lease.
Carano has said the intent of his measure would be to limit its effect to YSU, whose enrollment is around 13,000. Most universities with a similar or lesser enrollment do not have intercollegiate football teams, Carano has said.
But Carano has acknowledged that the proposal could allow professional teams or similar universities to apply for permits for other sports such as basketball or cross country or other events.
According to Carano and his bill, applicants for the proposed new permit would have to specify the time and location of the tailgating event. The bill wouldn't allow liquor or beer sales.
The idea is to allow tailgaters to bring and consume alcohol in an enclosed area & quot;with security personnel stationed at each exit to prevent any person from leaving with an opened flask or other container of beer or intoxicating liquor, & quot; the bill states.
Carano had introduced a similar measure in the last General Assembly. That bill passed the Ohio House but died in the Senate when the previous two-year legislative session ended in December.
Carano has said that he introduced the bill after press reports that there was a rule on the books in Ohio banning open containers of alcohol on public parking lots.
Publicity over the apparently little-known rule had made some officials at YSU nervous about practices on campus, leading to the proposal to formally make drinking at tailgate parties legal, Carano said.