Lawn tailgates return—with restrictions

The party is back on, kind of.

Close to three weeks after the Cavaliers’ home-opener football game against the University of Southern California, there are new rules about pre-gaming in the University of Virginia’s historic Lawn and Range areas.

It was before the USC game that Allen Groves, UVa’s associate vice president and dean of students — who was in the Lawn area — had to tell at least one person not to urinate in public.
Add that to the trash left behind and at least one reported fistfight that day, it just wasn’t pretty. And it led to a ban on socializing outside of residents’ rooms during the most recent home game, against the University of Richmond on Sept. 6.

It was the second time in the last year a ban was put in place. Before the Wake Forest University game last season the partying spiraled out of control and led to a chair being thrown in one instance, witnesses said.
“There have been, in the last few years, a blurring of the fact that this is a residential community,” Groves said.
But now, after conversations over the last week between Groves and Lawn and Range residents about preventing a similar showing in the future, there is a revised game day policy.

Among the new game-day policies suggested by students: an increased police presence, placement of trash cans in the area and the need to put portable toilets in some of the alleyways.
And while Lawn and Range residents have long been able to, with prior notice, host gatherings for up to 40 people on game days, Groves said the revised policy requires socializers to wear wristbands indicating they’re there as guests.

However, socializing must be kept within the vicinity of the rooms — meaning inside the rooms and on the patio area immediately outside the rooms.
Gatherings cannot make their way out into public areas (such as the middle of the Lawn), the revised policy states, reinforcing a long held rule that was more the letter of the law than the way of it.
There will also be no alcohol allowed out of the rooms unless it is in an opaque cup, the revised policy states. Alcohol must also be distributed in the rooms.

Other measures include:
—Alcohol must be brought into Lawn and Range rooms before 8 a.m. on game days, in effect to limit people who are not residents (or guests of residents) of the Lawn or Range from showing up in the area with alcohol on game day.

—While visitors who are not guests of Lawn or Range residents are still allowed in the area on game days, those visitors are prohibited from consuming alcohol during their visit.
The revised plan takes effect when the Cavaliers host the University of Maryland on Oct. 4.