Only VIPs will be allowed to drink alcohol inside Paris 2024 Olympics venues | Hacker News Reader

Only VIPs will be allowed to drink alcohol inside Paris 2024 Olympics venues

france24.com

66 pointsrntn30 comments

Looks like it is against french law to serve alcohol in stadiums - the article doesn't say outright, but they mention that catering can offer alcohol as part of their duties so it appears the reason VIPs can drink is due to being at a catered event.

Yeah, that is a bit shit, but the problem appears to be that the law carves a loophole out that only the wealthy execute on. I don't know though, I live far away and I have only heard about sports hooliganism, maybe it just genuinely makes sense. I'm having a hard time imagining a catered event getting overly rowdy

Fuck these BS click-bait titles that are really just designed to enrage.

The article explains it, that stadiums are prohibited from serving alcohol by French law, and an exemption isn't really possible in the Olympics case (because there are so many events) without a change in the law.

Drinking at catered events or indoors isn't covered by the stadium law, so drinking is allowed there.

Are the VIP boxes in the stadia 'catered events'?

European aristocrats won't let technicalities curtail their entertainment. If needed, the laws/regulations will be changed, but there's no way there's going to be any enforcement of discrepancies anyways.

What's somewhat more surprising is that they're not calling the whole of the olympics "catered" to earn a bit more revenue from alcohol sales. However, this should push visitors towards local establishments, which might be great for the lower rungs of the economy vs. giving that business to whoever wins a unified contract for the Olympics.

Super weird comment.

> European aristocrats

I think you will find the French rather famously did away with their aristocracy.

Nevertheless, the headline is 100% accurate. Perhaps the problem here is that the catered event rule shouldn't apply when the venue is inside a stadium.

> an exemption isn't really possible in the Olympics case (because there are so many events) without a change in the law

What confuses me is why the organizers couldn't seek a change in the law. The Olympics is a big enough deal that they could seek an exemption. When we hosted the Olympics, I remember they had special laws written specifically for the games.

They are perfectly aware that their excuse is flimsy and doesn’t hold scrutiny but they don’t care. Like they didn’t care that Parisians didn’t want the game and it’s just an ego trip from the worst mayor the city has ever had. They didn’t care that they won’t be ready in time despite having made the city a living hell for the past three years. And they didn’t care that the tickets were completely unaffordable for the average French.

These games will probably be the worst ever. No one wants them in France. I can already foresee mass strikes and protests and to be honest it makes me very happy. The Olympic Games are now a purely commercial endeavour which would make their founders ashamed of what they created.

What would be a good and healthy motivator to seek a chance in the law? Is there anything intrinsically good or healthy about serving alcohol in mass events?

Not much "healthy" but valid reason: it would have at least one big sponsor from alcohol industry. They even tried in Qatar Worldcup.

Well, the unwashed masses cannot handle themselves after several shots.../s

This doesn't really bother me. My experience at football games tells me that, regardless of socioeconomic stature, no one really handles themselves well at sporting events after a few shots.

It's not too hard to keep a small number of people from causing chaos, but security presence costs money. Seems logical that VIPs would spend enough to make the security presence net profitable.

In a perfect world, we could either trust everyone to behave or we could afford to put security everywhere to enforce it, but we don't live in a perfect world.

This is kinda my thought too.

You can also look at it as a "perk" of the more expensive ticket. First class passengers on an airplane are the only ones that get a full meal on most domestic air travel. How is this different?

> First class passengers on an airplane are the only ones that get a full meal on most domestic air travel. How is this different?

Why go to meal comparisons instead of something more directly relevant? First class passengers get unlimited free alcohol (same with Comfort+ and above on Delta and many other airlines too), and economy class has to pay per-drink.

Part of the reason I feel like a meal analogy is not good is because it varies heavily per airline and per flight distance.

…and yet the US manages this just fine at sporting events? I doubt normal people even have the option to purchase “VIP” tickets that allow for alcohol.

The US slays something around 40 people a day from drunk driving, more than 10x more from mass shootings (for which the US is known).

Alcohol culture is a real problem that almost nobody seems to want to highlight or address. We're not "managing just fine".

(Cigarettes kill 7x more every day than opiates, but one is an "epidemic" and one is available without a prescription at every corner store. It's a pattern when you look at the policy incentives.)

Yes, but without the /s, as decades of hooliganism, riots and racist bs have shown again and again.

I actually agree, lol

> Under Evin's Law, which has been in place since 1991, alcohol is banned from sale to the general public inside stadiums in France, and Games organisers had not sought an exemption, a Paris 2024 spokesperson told Reuters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_%C3%89vin

Edit: in USA we usually name a law against someone who died, but in this case it's named after the man who proposed it.

We do the same. The “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002” is more commonly known as “McCain-Feingold”.

In "The X Act" X is usually a politician who sponsored it, but in "X's Law" X is very often a crime or accident victim being honored/memorialized.

guess everyone else will just get trashed before they go in, or, more likely do their best effort to sneak in bottles of wine

Honestly even if the goal was to deter problematic levels of public drunkenness then that would work just fine. You probably won't be let in if you show up belligerent, and the combined pressures on volume and evidence usually means that people sneaking in drink don't become problematic.

If you need drugs to enjoy an event, maybe the event is not needed in first place... Or there should be some significant work done on it.

I think the issue here is the segregation deciding exactly who gets to take drugs and who does not.

Jesus, this is so French.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com