It's The Pre-Game Drinking That's The Problem

I think efforts to limit the time of booze sales at sports events is really counterproductive. People aren't getting plastered off of $8 Coors Lights, they're getting plastered from the shots they downed before they walked into the place. Limit sales at the games and you're going to encourage more of that.

In the same vein, this month, Brooklyn Speaks, an amalgamation of civic organizations and community groups concerned about the development at Atlantic Yards, drew up a petition calling on the State Liquor Authority to end alcohol sales at the Barclays Center arena no later than 10 p.m. The group worried that drinking at the stadium could linger on until 4 a.m., even though no amount of N.B.A. overtime — or encores at a Bon Jovi concert, for that matter — would ever likely last that long. (The group was seeking to end drinks sales at basketball games at half time; at Madison Square Garden, they are permitted until the beginning of the fourth quarter.)