Gillette Stadium in Foxborough has seen its fair share of drunken New England Patriots fans, as has every other stadium housing a National Football League team. But according to The Boston Globe, the number of intoxicated tailgaters and barhopping Pats fans has increased exponentially in the past three years, resulting in a record-setting 933 people taken into protective custody. In an effort to curtail these numbers, a special town meeting was held in Foxborough this week, cumulating in a staggering decision: those taken into protective custody will be charged $200 regardless of the amount of time they spend in jail or any other factors.
If the attorney general’s office approves the initiative, Pats fans could be in trouble come football season. Anyone above the .05 alcohol legal limit would be subject to the fine. That’s under the .08 limit that will get drunken drivers a Driving While Intoxicated (DWI). Anyone else who is “unaware of their surroundings [or exhibits] the odor of alcohol,” according to Foxborough Police Department chief Edward T. O’Leary, could be placed under protective custody and sequestered. That leaves a lot of room for subjectivity. When someone’s money is on the line, there needs to be a distinct line for officers to defer to.
Although police officers are supposed to exercise discretion in their day-to-day work the idea that they should be able to hand out fines on indistinct terms is alarming. It also doesn’t make sense financially. Based on last year’s statistics, if 933 people were taken into custody in Foxborough and each detainee was served with a $200 penalty, $186,600 would go to the police department. That’s a little more than the town receives in administrative fees from the Kraft Group and doesn’t begin to touch the $1.8 million given to local and volunteer police from the same company for the stadium’s functions. Ultimately, the law wouldn’t be able to alleviate costs to the point that it wouldn’t be worth specifically targeting football fans.
While there should be some amount of legal enforcement for events where 70,000 people show up, imposing fines not only seems expendable but could also incite legal fees of a different kind. The city could lose money just as easily when those who are served decide to appeal their fines. Judges, public lawyers and bailiffs all have to be paid for dedicating their time to these cases. The attorney general’s office would be wise to stop this plan in its tracks.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
