B.C. Lions tailgaters are homeless. Again.
The tailgate party — one of football’s most time-honoured traditions — is perilously close to extinction in Vancouver thanks to liability issues and the city’s lack of downtown parking lots.
For years, tailgaters have drifted from lot to lot in search of a permanent home. Last season they set up their grills and coolers in a tiny lot beside the downtown Costco. That space has since been rented to the B.C. Pavilion Corp.
The year before they gathered under the Cambie Street Bridge. Before that they spent some time in an EasyPark lot across from the Shark Club. “We’re hoping to find another lot, but our choices are limited,” said Brian Wawryshyn, who runs bclionsden.ca and organizes tailgate parties.
Even the Lions franchise can’t do much to help. While the club sympathizes with the tailgaters, it doesn’t own the lots around the stadium and can’t control how they are used, said Jamie Cartmell, the Lions’ communications director. The club holds its own pre-game street party on Beatty Street before regular-season home games.
Wawryshyn said tailgaters have been told the parties pose a liability issue because lot owners do not want to be held responsible if something happens on their lots. A massive tailgate party before the 2007 Western Conference Finals left an equally massive mess in the Impark lot under the Cambie Street Bridge.
Last season, the lot was closed to tailgaters, likely at the request of the lot owner, said Wawryshyn. The big tailgate party was an isolated incident fuelled by the antics of rowdy “one-off” fans, he said.
Usually, the Lions fans’ tailgates consist of only 30 to 40 people. “We don’t leave a mess behind. We take all our garbage, all our bottles, cans, everything,” he said.
Wawryshyn met with Impark, which manages lots on behalf of their respective owners, last year to discuss possible solutions. Nothing has come from those talks.
He is especially frustrated by the fact that tailgating is widely accepted in other cities. The Calgary Stampeders for example, run a popular season-pass program for fans who want to tailgate before games. “I don’t understand why it’s such an issue [here].”
Impark said the issue has more to do with a lack of space in Vancouver’s downtown core than anything else.
“When you’ve got a tailgating area, it takes up a number of spaces and it's a very inefficient use of parking,” said Julian Jones, Impark’s vice-president of business development. “Trying to use the primary parking areas for tailgating just doesn’t work.”
Safety issues also arise when there are people milling around and hot barbeques firing in high-density parking lots, he said.
The best hope for tailgaters would be for a private downtown business to step forward and offer up space on game days. Wawryshyn has put a plea for help out on Twitter, but hasn’t gotten any response.
“Everyone’s disappointed,” he said. “It’s a huge part of the game for us. It’s become a tradition and we’ve made a lot of good friends doing it.”
