University of Utah officials have abandoned their threat to prohibit alcoholic beverages at tailgate parties before football games at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
Administrative reviews of campus policy and state law have confirmed that drinking alcohol is legal at the state-owned parking lot where the pre-game parties are staged, the university said.
"The standard renewal note was mailed to tailgaters informing them that the tradition will continue," university spokesman Fred Esplin said Wednesday.
The state school's athletic department annually sells 450 to 500 tailgate passes, at $100 apiece, to football fans who gather in the parking lot to cook steaks, burgers and other fare and also often consume wine, beer and liquor.
In January, university President Bernie Machen said he planned to ban alcohol at the tailgate parties.
"Those are the kinds of things that should not be tolerated around here," Machen had been quoted in a copyright story in The Salt Lake Tribune as saying. "Absolutely not."
Machen's office was besieged with calls from angry fans after his comments were reported.
However, university officials claim the issue was one of state law — whether alcohol was legal on the state-owned parking lot.
"The issue was to be sure we were within the law, which we thought we were based on our own interpretation," Esplin said.
Utah law outlaws alcohol consumption in state-owned buildings, parks and stadiums. It doesn't mention parking lots — which Machen previously said was "a bit of a distinction without a difference, as far as I'm concerned."
However, the university now says that its legal counsel concluded that since parking lots aren't specified, the tailgating lot falls outside the prohibition.