Sell alcohol at TCF Bank Stadium? Drunken public sex at Metrodome during Gopher game sheds new light on debate

When the University of Minnesota Board of Regents meets Dec. 12 to decide whether to allow wine and beer sales at TCF Bank Stadium, they’ll have a piece of news to consider: the alcohol-enabled public sex act in a Metrodome bathroom stall that drew a crowd during the Minnesota Gophers 55-0 football loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes last weekend.

Police charged an Iowa woman and a man she doesn’t know (also inebriated and from Iowa) with indecent conduct. The 38-year-old mother of three told the Des Moines Register she was so drunk on wine she doesn’t remember a thing, but the incident and the attendant press coverage has already cost her her job and “ruined my life.”

If the regents decide to go with alcohol sales, in spite of the Nov. 22 incident and a state drinking age of 21 that excludes many undergrads from imbibing, they’ll find that TCF Bank Stadium is already sumptuously outfitted for public bathroom sex.

TCF Bank Stadium will have 400 bathroom stalls for women, 80 for men (plus 200 individual urinals, not communal troughs as at the Dome). ”[D]on’t expect the traditional lines outside of the women’s restrooms,” trumpeted the university’s new service — although that was before the audience for public sex acts in bathroom stalls was fully understood.

While the stadium itself is still under construction, it’s elaborate Web site is not, and there you can get an idea of the facilities available for splendor near the the gridiron. The Indoor Club ($3,000 per seat) will have its own private restrooms. The “M Room,” a 3,000-square-foot gathering space for varsity letter-winners of all eras and genders, is similarly equipped: Listed amenities include “private restrooms for men and women.” (Separately? Not clear.) The M Room is a gathering space “for anyone who has ever worn the ‘M’,” a promotional Web page says. Will designers now have to hurriedly design an “A Room” for anyone who has ever been forced to wear that letter?

“These are not areas that are multiple-use facilities,” U of M Vice President Kathryn Brown told regents at their Nov. 14 meeting, explaining that alcohol sales will be limited to high-priced premium areas of the new stadium.  A review of the video from that meeting (alcohol discussion starts at 1:56) reveals other statements that now lend themselves to new interpretation (emphasis added).

Chair Patricia Simmons: ”The restriction of the venue is designed to minimize the opportunity for student exposure to unhealthy practices.”

Regent Anthony Baraga: “I don’t see what we gain by selling alcohol or even giving it away at sporting events. My thought would be that we shouldn’t sell it or give it away at sporting events. I’m sure our basketball hockey or our football games would be just as exciting.”

No word on whether the TCF Bank Stadium state-of-the-art “scoreboard” will take up where the Metrodome’s popular Kiss Cam feature left off. If love is a (gateway) drug, then watching random people kiss is just the beginning.

Meanwhile, the lowly Metrodome — whose occupants want to leave so badly, team owners spend millions lobbying the state for public funding of new stadiums — is now home to the state’s second-most famous bathroom stall — and the only one of the two where the public sex it’s famous for actually happened.