Season ticket holder. Kicked out of the blue lot for a few years and missed homecoming last year. Paid up for a blue lot pass for today's game and the lot was dead. Maybe one big party nothing like years past. Is this the new normal with the heavy police presence?
Blue Lot,Homecoming, New Normal???
- Thread starter Boz29
- Start date
Frats stay on college ave and the younger alumni have been bumped to the purple lot
Even with the larger frat parties all but kicked out of the Blue Lot, the police are continuing to harass tailgaters before every game and lightning quick to give out tickets for underage drinking. The fact that this occurred today, in the morning before a noon game in a subdued lot, is telling of what atmosphere to expect for the time being.
@babbs09 the fan advisory board needs to discuss the police presence issue at tailgates. Nothing but rude officers all day and I see a lot of fellow tailgaters losing their patience with the BS we have to put up with in the Blue Lot. Much more subdued last year.
Dunno for sure, but all that press RU got about the couple students that died from drinking too much alcohol at parties in the recent past may have something to do with the police presence.
I could be off base, but that's what comes to my mind.
I could be off base, but that's what comes to my mind.
That doesn't really make sense, considering that the vast majority of harassment and ticketing is being done by one particular county department. Most of the other law enforcement (from numerous jurisdictions) seems to be respectful, do their jobs, and enjoy the overtime on a nice day.
The fan advisory board is useless. It's met... twice? At most. Last time was a good five months ago.
Slowly but surely enough people are cultivating the necessary relationships to get this sorted out. Notice that today, at least toward the front of the lot, there was no more "make room for the ATV". That's because after several conversations with Julie and her people, the parking contractor and RUPD, it's been agreed that the intent of the ATVs is to patrol the perimeter, not the interior.
As for underage drinking, that's a scoreboard issue. Some of the County cops are very gung-ho about it. Some are not. There are 60 County cops on site during gameday, out of a total uniform complement of 212. The only thing you can be certain of is that underage drinking is against the law - if you do it, you might get caught. If you run into one of the gung-ho guys who already has his whole summons book written out before he even hits the lot, just waiting to fill in the names (true story - we were shown such a thing this morning) then you're in deep shit.
If you're a season ticket holder and you park in the Blue lot, I suggest you do what we've done - get to know the local patrols (it's always the same guys), hand out water and coffee, chat them up when they come by, offer them food (which they probably won't take) and just. be. cool. We've had enough experiences with these guys to know that if you're not a dick, they won't be either.
How big of a donated do you need to be to cultivate relationships? The bullshit in the purple lot this years makes it feel more like a police state.
I see more police at a Rutgers tailgate event than I did at State college... And they had twice as many people!
I see more police at a Rutgers tailgate event than I did at State college... And they had twice as many people!
Yes this is the new norm. You can thank some of the frequent posters on this board.
212 officers?
It would help after games if a few of them could go to the traffic lights on River Road west of the stadium.
Red lights there stop the even flow necessary to clear the stadium lots
Sat at two red lights today where no cars were entering River Road
All the lights west of the stadium until I-287 should be manned.
It would help after games if a few of them could go to the traffic lights on River Road west of the stadium.
Red lights there stop the even flow necessary to clear the stadium lots
Sat at two red lights today where no cars were entering River Road
All the lights west of the stadium until I-287 should be manned.
I don't even park there & see those cops being assholes when I walk by. Rutgers is really killing one of the best tailgating scenes. Even the purple lot has gotten more abusive police presence. It's ridiculous. And hey, would it kill any of them to learn how to direct traffic so we could actually exit the lots & drive down Easton Ave or River Road in under an hour?
Maybe a couple extra outside the Hale Center to to stop some of the Recruiting Ambassadors from ganging up on extended family members (too soon... or too late?!).
No offense to the (mostly) fine law enforcement officers assigned to the tailgating lots, but fraternizing with them (and along the lines of but maybe not quite what you're suggesting, kissing their ass with treats) is not anywhere near the top of my tailgating priority list.
And the bolded portion of your post really bothers me; officers like that DO NOT deserve to be assigned to ANY tailgating lots, since their sole purpose of extracting even more money from already well-paying customers/donors. The analogy that comes to mind most is assigning cops from Englishtown/Eatontown/East Brunswick to conduct speed limit enforcement on a wide open autobahn filled with high-end Italian and German cars zooming by, when the real priorities are left-lane discipline and responding to accidents/emergencies..
I'll leave it at that, since we can argue in circles about the current state of the Blue Lot.
Quitting drinking will solve your problem.I did after the crackdown began in 1985-and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.A football game is not the Oktoberfest.
Blue lot not even 75% full at gametime. Purple was worse and very quiet. What happened to the Homcoming crowds?
Dear God man...no drinking since 1985!!!!...we went through some rough performance patches since then....my hat us off to you.
The Sheriff's officers we spoke to told us that they have been told by RU to crack down on the underage drinking. The RU police don't want to do it themselves since they are the daily face at RU so they have passed it off to the sheriff dept that is only there on game day. Some of them enjoy it & bust balls but we talked to 2 guys who actually run interference & don't think that those not causing a problem should be ticketed. As 4Real stated above ATVs have been relegated to the perimeters bit there still needs to be reasonable area to walk thru the rows. Additionally this week the parking people parked the cars one row at a time instead of the stupid way they had cars parking one behind the other last week where you couldn't park next to the people you came in with.
Not sure if your post was directed at anyone in particular, but quitting drinking is for alcoholics. I'll continue enjoying a few brews or shots to be social if I feel like it, regardless of what random message board posters suggest. And the overbearing Middlesex County cops are the problem here.
Yes, much better parking next to each other as opposed to behind. However, we were in the 4th or 5th row of Blue and they still drove the ATVs through.
Nj
The lots were undersold as people failed to donate like the school was hoping mm
The lots were undersold as people failed to donate like the school was hoping mm
Come on, man. Why not quit eating, too? Seriously, tailgating is a traditional social experience on gameday, and having a few drinks is a part of it; for some, it's a larger part than for others. A little self-control is all that's required. Eat, drink, and be merry. And "Go RU!!!"
The part of the Black Lot I was in was dead too. I didn't see one cop.
I'm of the opinion the fan base is in shock right now and it's affecting even how fans feel when they get together and tailgate. I think people seem a lot more subdued, waiting for the next shoe to fall.
I'm of the opinion the fan base is in shock right now and it's affecting even how fans feel when they get together and tailgate. I think people seem a lot more subdued, waiting for the next shoe to fall.
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Green lotter here...... 4 hour pre-game tailgate, not one policeman came through, no paths for police vehicles were requested....
Also, no drunken problems either, which is why police don't come, not needed.....
You get what is called for...... I think if any lot had an established reputation of no problems, the police don't feel the need to patrol....
My advice would be for underage drinkers to do their drinking before they hit the lots, and those of age not to get drunk at the lot.... I know, hard to do, unreasonable to ask, but, the less problems occur, the less police patrol
Yellow Lot- Nice mix of older fans, young fans and families, drinking, eating and having a nice time. Isn't that supposed to be what tailgating is all about?
The Green (and Scarlet, for that matter), have the highest paying RU donors parking in them. I'd venture to say that they'd have little to no tolerance for the current actions and attitudes of police in, say, the Blue and Purple lots.
Also, the lots are different in terms of average age and overall atmosphere. Regardless of whether your request is reasonable or not (and I agree about not causing problems to begin with), it's unrealistic. If fulfilling their pregame party desires elsewhere, many students will simply fail to come to the game; if continually harassed by L.E., young alumni will stop paying/donating for parking passes. Neither of which is beneficial to Rutgers.
Not long ago DCI,,drum corps international had a major show at our stadium. The crowd is well behaved and tailgates at a modest level. The management was difficult to deal with and the police/security were described as "harsh".......DCI says it will NEVER hold an event at Rutgers Stadium again....sad because there have been some great drum corps shows,,and corps in NJ....
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I was a college age tailgater at one point, I remember....there is less tolerance now, but there has to be, because the university is even more responsible if something bad happens during a tailgate..... we live in a sue happy world now
I disagree as to why the police do not patrol the green lot.... it is more of a waste of police time, not because the tailgaters are less
tolerant of the police
I can tell a short story here, if I may.... last year I was in my seats at the stadium and two younger than 21 year olds, sitting in front of me, had brought in approx.
15 cans of beer somehow.... they proceeded to drink the beer at the start of the game.... I figured hey, as long as they behave themselves
I will be a cool dude and just watch the game as normal, let them have a good time..
sure enough, after a while, they were making a scene, standing up and unsteady on their feet.....I actually thought they might fall backward
onto my family...... I told them, they had a choice.....sit down, you can continue drinking your against the law beer, just don't disrupt, or, if
they could not behave I would get the police over.....
they got all insulted, but after a few minutes they just moved to a different location......
this is my basic attitude.... If the fans can drink without cause a disturbance, be it in the lot, or sneaking it in, I am fine with it....as long as you
don't disturb anybody, or endanger yourself by overdrinking to the point of emergency, falling,etc.
but what happens many times, those underage lot drinkers that are responsible have it ruined by a few.
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I was bumped from the yellow to green about 5 years ago, without asking for a change....I do agree from what I remember that the yellow
is a great lot for a blend of young and old, good atmosphere.
I wrote the AD's office and Mr. Brown about excessive policing in the black lot, overuse of ATVs to do the patrolling and to get these officers on foot, and within a day was called by a police official of some sort. I knew within a minute of discussion it was a waste of my time, as the reason for keeping the driving lanes of the parking lot totally clear is in the even a grill catches fire and the authorities needed room to get a fire truck in there quickly.
Underage drinking isn't the theme, IMO. It's just typical NJ politics where every police/special force needs to make its presence felt to justify its existence and to wrack up overtime for the boys.
If Rutgers wants to treat everyone like vagrants, brawlers or binge drinkers, let's see how full the parking lots and stadium look with some back-to-back 4-8 seasons.
Underage drinking isn't the theme, IMO. It's just typical NJ politics where every police/special force needs to make its presence felt to justify its existence and to wrack up overtime for the boys.
If Rutgers wants to treat everyone like vagrants, brawlers or binge drinkers, let's see how full the parking lots and stadium look with some back-to-back 4-8 seasons.
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the keeping the lanes open is probably NOT to get to a grill if a fire, I think that reason is bogus..... more, they want to be able to patrol
for drinking problems, disturbances.....they don't worry about lanes open in some lots, and there are grills cranking away in those.
I also noticed the the lots blue, yellow and purple where quiet (and not full). Perfect for senior citizen tailgate crowd (no noise please while I eat my bologna sandwich and drink my Bud Light). I was particularly disappointed by the pregame homecoming event or lack there-of in the Glen. Didn't see any homecoming or welcome alumni signage (perhaps I missed it). There was a large tented area devoted to welcome VIP's and another that had an unexplained tent with gate keepers. There were several areas devoted to corporate promotion of products. Why where they handing out high calorie 50 carb milk and foam bones? The back packs handed out by a health insurance group didn't even have the Rutgers logo on it. What was with the Keurig thing (trying to keep people awake for the game)? Why have a bunch of guys wresting? Where they associated with Rutgers or random guys who came upon a mat and started spontaneously wrestling (no signage)? What was with that one sad old guy playing a guitar and singing? Was there a kids area? This is a large University, is this the best they could do for homecoming?
It is obvious that the only alumni valued by Rutgers are the ones with deep pockets.
The last two away venues I have been were Penn State & Ohio State. 210,000 total visitors with maybe 100 total visible police officers.
Absent an active riot, you don't need the police presence that Rutgers has. Padding these guys OTs so they can drive their toys up & down the field is likely where a HUGE chunk of the athletics subsidy goes each year, and why it hasn't come down significantly and never will. And look at the results that having this Orwellian presence gave us: 250 cops collecting a $500 paycheck each from Rutgers did nothing to stop our star receiver from getting into an incident which cost him millions in lifetime earnings while increasing the athletics deficit $125,000.
If Rutgers was serious about busting underage drinking, they would ask Jimmy County to dress undercover, and he could empty his entire prefilled quota book without harrassing the 52,000 law abiding fans.
Absent an active riot, you don't need the police presence that Rutgers has. Padding these guys OTs so they can drive their toys up & down the field is likely where a HUGE chunk of the athletics subsidy goes each year, and why it hasn't come down significantly and never will. And look at the results that having this Orwellian presence gave us: 250 cops collecting a $500 paycheck each from Rutgers did nothing to stop our star receiver from getting into an incident which cost him millions in lifetime earnings while increasing the athletics deficit $125,000.
If Rutgers was serious about busting underage drinking, they would ask Jimmy County to dress undercover, and he could empty his entire prefilled quota book without harrassing the 52,000 law abiding fans.
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Not baseless...common sense
You don't need the smoke n gun to know that there is some funny business going on.
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you know there were more passes sold this year because many people with the same number of priority points as the previous year were
dropped down a lot level because there were more fans with higher points pushing them out....IF we had less fans in the lots, the
priority pts needed would have dropped, not gone up.
you cannot go by just what you see in the lots....this game was not well attended, and even the well attended games have many fans
late arriving, that fill the lot just before kickoff...
Seriously, what are you talking about?
Yeah, the blue and yellow lots haven't been full this year. Duh - neither has the stadium.
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the senior citizen tailgates, on average, have much better food than the students.... bologna sandwiches?...bud light?...
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