If UF officials have their way, it may be a little harder to get drunk at the next Florida-Georgia football showdown, which has been held in Jacksonville since 1933.
Officials, including UF President Bernie Machen, have asked Jacksonville to implement a number of changes for this year's game, which will affect The Jacksonville Landing, a strip of restaurants and shops on the Jacksonville waterfront, and other areas populated with fans from the game.
The requests include limiting the number of people at the Landing to levels approved by the fire marshal, halving the number of locations that sell alcohol, banning the sale of shots, increasing enforcement of alcohol laws and sponsoring places for students to go instead of the Landing, among other requests.
According to a Landing spokeswoman, an unfair proportion of the changes focus on the strip, where fans flock to party before and after the game.
The requests were included in a letter sent late last month to Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton.
Machen and UF's Vice President of Student Affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin signed the letter, which says that little progress has been made in preventing the conditions that caused two student deaths, one in 2004 and in 2005.
Both students were intoxicated and had become separated from their friends because of the crowds, the letter states.
"The large number of people crammed into the Landing courtyard and the stairwells and balconies surrounding the courtyard can best be described as hazardous," the letter reads. "In addition, the amount of alcohol being sold and consumed in such a tight area are very problematic." An evacuation of the area in an emergency situation would be impossible, they argue in the letter.
Also, citing budget cuts, the letter asks that the city pick up the entire tab for the student safety zones where students can get things like food, medical attention and directions.
UF pays about $10,000 a year to run it's share of the zones, which includes costs for hotel rooms for the 20 to 25 UF volunteers who staff the zones, according to Dave Kratzer, UF's associate vice president for Student Affairs.
In addition to those funds, the University Police Department spent about $900 to send three officers to assist volunteers, said UPD spokesman Capt. Jeff Holcomb.
Next year, if the city ends up paying for the zones, the officers will be eligible for overtime pay, which would bump costs up to about $1,900, Holcomb said.
The University of Georgia sent volunteers the first year the safety zones were available, but has not done so the past two years because of budget issues, said Tom Jackson, vice president for public affairs at UGA. It cost UGA about $15,000 to send volunteers down, he said.
The safety zones are mostly used by Florida fans, who also make up most of the crowd at the Landing as well, he said.
He said Georgia fans usually have hotel rooms and tend to celebrate a bit differently.
"It's a little bit of a different atmosphere the way Georgia fans handle the game," he said.
No UGA students have died at the game in recent years, he said, though four students died traveling to and from the game in 1997.
Adam Hollingsworth, chief of staff in the Jacksonville mayor's office, said the city is researching the feasibility of UF's requests. Hollingsworth said the city is considering issues like whether it can tell businesses not to serve alcohol in a specific form, like shots.
He said it's not clear how much the changes would cost the city but said it should be minimal.
The city is determined to work with UF and the University of Georgia to keep them happy and keep fans safe, he said.
"The Florida-Georgia game is a longstanding tradition in Jacksonville, and it's our desire to keep this game for a long, long time," he said.
According to Michael Bouda, Jacksonville's manager of sports and entertainment, the visiting fans bring in about $25 million to $30 million each year.
The universities also profit from the game.
Each year, the universities make about $1.5 million to $2 million more each year in ticket revenues than they would if the game rotated from Athens to Gainesville, said UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes.
The two universities split ticket revenues 50-50, after certain expenses are deducted. Last year, each university took home about $1.6 million, according to figures provided by Susan Parrish, University Athletic Association assistant athletic director/controller.
Rachel Nudge, spokeswoman for the Landing, said she thinks the proposed changes would likely increase security costs for the Landing and decrease revenues for some of the vendors.
For example, keeping crowds in the courtyard and balcony areas to 2,500-the fire marshal's limit- would be difficult, especially with 100,000 people visiting the Landing from Friday to Sunday, she said.
She said the Landing has taken steps to increase safety over the last few years. The changes, like moving the stage with live music from the inner courtyard to a city street outside the facility in order to spread the crowd out, costs about $50,000 a year on top of their normal security measures.
"Because this is the hot spot during this event, because everyone likes to come here, they're pointing the finger at us," Nudge said.
"We've never had a serious incident here during Florida-Georgia," she said. "We've gotta be doing something right."
