State legislators plan to vote on a bill this week that would require “substance-free seating” for Colorado sporting events and concerts at venues with more than 7,000 seats, including stadiums, arenas and amphitheaters.
Senate Bill 23-171, introduced Feb. 27 by Colorado Sen. Kevin Priola and Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, would require venues such as Ball Arena, Coors Field, Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Empower Field at Mile High to offer 4 percent of their audience capacity as “substance free seating,” where alcohol, tobacco and other substances would be banned.
The bill addresses the need for families and people in addiction recovery to have substance-free spaces, Priola said Friday, and is part of a growing national movement toward such spaces.
The bill would set a national precedent as the first of its type in the country, although some sports stadiums — including Coors Field — already offer small, alcohol-free sections for families.
“There’s a growing (sober) community and segment of the market that isn’t being represented,” Priola said. “In the U.S., 9 percent of people at any one time are trying to recover from addiction, and if you add in families that don’t want a bunch of people partaking around them, 4 percent is completely reasonable.”
If passed, failure to comply with the bill would be “basis for refusal or denial of an alcohol beverage license renewal or initial license issuance and other forms of license-related discipline,” according to the bill’s text.
Priola has been working with sports teams and venues owners to build support for the bill, and has people lined up to endorse it at a hearing later this week, he said. The bill would take effect in 2026, giving teams, venues and promoters time to work with season ticket holders who might be affected, as well as other legal and logistical concerns.
Colorado’s Liquor Enforcement Division declined to comment on the proposed bill, saying that the state would weigh in only if it passes. Denver-based concert promoter AEG Presents Rocky Mountains also declined to comment on the potential effect on ticket prices and seating layouts.
Complicating the bill is the fact that most Colorado sports and concert venues maintain sponsorship deals with liquor and beer companies. In addition, beer, liquor and wine consumption is up year-over-year in Colorado as of 2020, according to data from the Beverage Information Group and Park Street Analyses. The Colorado Department of Revenue also showed a general upward trend in liquor excise taxes since 2016, according to a recent report.
The bill would have unintended negative consequences for Colorado restaurants and bars, according to Colin Larson, director of government affairs at the Colorado Restaurant Association.
“While we applaud the underlying goal of supporting people in recovery, this bill would create an unreasonable and unsustainable situation for independent food-and-beverage vendors with stadium locations, endangering their businesses and their employees’ livelihoods,” he said in a statement provided to The Denver Post.
“This bill would punish these operators for circumstances outside of their control, as they have no way to police where customers go after they purchase an alcohol beverage in a stadium setting,” Larson said. “The unintended consequences here put stadium employees and vendors at great disadvantage, opening the door for customer complaints and lost revenue.”
The bill would not affect off-premise alcohol consumption or sales, according to its language. But it would still represent a further decaying of the state’s liquor industry, said Chris Fine, executive director of the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association.
John Leyba, The Denver Post
The magnetometers in place at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre for the Lyle Lovett and Emmylou Harris concert on Friday, July 15, 2016. A proposed bill on sober seating could help shift the culture at public events, just as security norms have shifted, its sponsors say.
“We deal with off-premise sales and mom-and-pop liquor stores, but I know that addressing addiction is a big passion project of Senator Priola,” Fine said. “However, we did just see billions of out-of-state dollars come in trying to eradicate our industry (in relation to wine sales at grocery stores, which began March 1), so this would just be another eroding effect.”
Priola said the bill’s bar may seem high, but that public-health campaigns against cigarettes, vaping and other addictive substances have succeeded in the past, and that his bill has the same potential.
“I’ve done a lot with opioid legislation and on other substance-related committees, and what I’ve learned in that time — especially working with the CU Anschutz Medical Center — is that alcohol-use disorder is the biggest one out there. It just happens to be the most socially acceptable.”
Walking through magnetometers and undergoing other rigorous security checks at public events seemed draconian 20 years ago, Priola said, and now it’s standard. People can be re-trained. But taking his own kids to sporting events and seeing unruly, substance-driven behavior also inspired the bill, Priola said.
He acknowledged the enforcement would be complicated, and that passage is likely an uphill battle, given the lack of response from liquor-industry players. He said he’ll introduce it as many times as necessary until it passes.
“There already mechanisms at venues to report issues with rowdy attendees, and this would piggyback on that,” he said. “But I think large entertainment venues, most of which are publicly funded, could look at this as a market opportunity to serve a broader customer base.”
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