Posted on 05/14/2006 6:40:48 AM PDT by radar101
The San Diego Chargers and their fans have an awkward relationship these days. The fans do their best to root for the team despite knowing that two years from now, the Chargers might pick up and move to Las Vegas, San Antonio or who knows where.
Now Chargers fans have found another reason to be grumpy: pricier new parking rules for home games.
Chargers fans tailgated outside San Diego Stadium in 1973. Thirty-three years later, the name of the stadium is different, but the tradition of tailgating remains. The rules, which include restrictions on where recreational vehicles can park and a quadrupling of fees to reserve certain prime tailgating space, have left some season-ticket holders complaining that the tailgating experience will be ruined.
Some longtime fans are so upset they are thinking about giving up their season tickets. The way they see it, forcing them to change their pre-game parking rituals is a bit like forcing them to limit their tailgating menu to wine coolers and fondu.
“I know who Ryan Leaf is. I suffered through 1-15,” said Paul Sanchez, 42, of Hemet, a season-ticket holder for 10 years. “I've never once threatened to turn in my tickets . . . but this is just not right.”
Team executives say the fans are overreacting to a few modest changes that actually will make parking easier while preserving time-honored tailgating rituals. The team adopted the new rules, Chargers officials say, in part because police warned them to get control of the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot. The team, not the city, has sole discretion over parking rates for Chargers games and keeps all the revenue.
“We're not trying to make change for change's sake,” said Jim Steeg, the Chargers' executive vice president and chief operating officer. “We're trying to make things better.”
The fans will realize fairly quickly, Steeg predicted, that the new parking system is actually an improvement.
“It's going to take two games for everything to settle in,” he said.
Perhaps the biggest change is that RVs won't be allowed to park wherever they want anymore. Chargers executives say that in the past RVs have occupied five or six spaces that could have been used to park other cars.
Now, RVs will be restricted to the A sections in the northeast corner of the Qualcomm Stadium complex, which can accommodate roughly 350 of the vehicles. Instead of paying $34 to park, RV owners will pay $100 per game if they buy a parking pass in advance, or $150 if they buy the pass on game day. Season-pass holders will get a 20 percent discount.
RV owners also have the option of buying two “buddy” parking passes – at $20 each – in the adjacent B sections. The idea is that an RV owner's pals can park there and walk over to tailgate. Each RV space will come with an adjacent empty space where the owner can set up the barbecue grill, picnic tables and other tailgating essentials.
But some die-hard tailgaters say the new regulations will change the whole dynamic of their beloved game-day bashes.
Nick Ortiz, 43, of Chula Vista, a season-ticket holder since 1991, has been tailgating in the B2 section with the same group of buddies for more than a decade. They sit around an “old broken-down camper” while they barbecue pork roasts and carne asada and drink frosty beverages.
Not only is the new system more expensive, Ortiz said, but it will make it much more complicated for his pals to congregate in the same place. Ortiz, a transportation planner for the county, is thinking about canceling his season tickets.
“It will completely change the routine and tradition we've had the last 15 years,” he said.
Other fans are bothered by another new rule: One of the parking lot's prime tailgating sections – the spaces on the outer perimeter of the parking-lot fence – now must be reserved ahead of time, at $75 per game, with the option of buying up to two adjacent “buddy” spaces at $20 each. In the past, these spots have been open to all vehicles at no extra charge on a first-come, first-served basis.
Bob Yates, 66, of Del Mar, a season-ticket holder for 20 years, has been tailgating with his buddies in that section for years. Their weekly delicacies include everything from jalapeño poppers to barbecued lobster tail. They usually show up at 6 a.m., just as the gates opened, to make sure they got the spaces they wanted.
Yates, who owns a Rancho Bernardo laundry, adamantly refuses to pay extra next season for those parking spaces.
“I feel they're just milking us,” he said. “And then they're going to leave town. It's as simple as that.”
Chargers officials say the new policy will help reduce the morning chaos in the parking lot, where drivers engage in a mad dash that leads to accidents and other problems.
Last year, Steeg said, the team surveyed the fans who tailgated along the fence line and discovered that many of them would be willing to pay extra to reserve these prime spots so they could avoid the “hunt and peck” parking scramble.
“We're trying to bring structure to the unstructured,” Steeg said.
He noted that fans unwilling to pay for the reserved parking are still free to tailgate in other sections of the parking lot.
There are some other changes, too. The price of regular parking will increase to $20, from $17. The opening of the parking lot on game days will be pushed back two hours, from 6 to 8 a.m.. For night games, it will open five hours before kickoff.
Steeg noted that many other NFL teams have similar policies, especially regarding RV parking. Both the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers limit RVs to one section of the stadium, at a cost of $40. The Raiders charge $15 for cars to park, while the 49ers charge $25.
Steeg realizes the changes might take some getting used to. He knows full well that some fans are very particular when it comes to their favorite plot of asphalt.
While many Chargers fans have complained about the higher prices, the main complaint, he said, “is something like, 'I've always been under the light post in F4 and now you're making me go somewhere else,' ” he said.
Indeed, for some die-hard tailgaters, a fan's Sunday-morning parking ritual is as hallowed as his choice of jersey and the choice of meat he throws on the grill.
Disrespect these rituals at your peril, they warn.
“We love the Chargers. We love being in the stadium,” said Sanchez, the fan from Hemet. “You stick with them year after year and then they treat you like they're the Raiders.”
Yes, Qualcom started as San Diego Stadium (IIRC) then it was Jack Murphy Stadium then Qualcom.. or the Q as many call it here.
Pretty soon it will be called Empty cause I think the Chargers are going to be out of here.
"Actually it still exists and is the home field of San Diego High School."
Really? I could have sworn they tore it down. I remember going to rock concerts there in the 70's but I thought it was torn down in the late 70's or early 80's.
I haven't been down that way in years so I guess I'll have to take your word for it.
I suppose it competes with the six dollar beers and five dollar hot dogs inside the stadium.
-Eric
Actually, at McAfee Coliseum (where Oakland Raiders play) they usually have a similar policy--they limit tailgating to a very specific part of the stadium parking lot. That actually works for everyone because 1) it's a lot more fun to have all the tailgaters in one spot and 2) it makes for much easier policing in case of trouble.
Yep. Some of us still call it "The Murph".
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