
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 3, 1993                   TAG: 9305030077
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LEIGH ALLEN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BALLPARK BEER SALES FACED TOUGH OPPOSITION

Beer drinking at Roanoke Valley sports events has not always been an easy sell to the public.

Before 1980, beer wasn't sold at Municipal Field, then home to the Carolina League Salem Redbirds.

But between the 1979 and 1980 seasons, the team applied for a permit to sell beer. It brought fierce protest from some citizens. Dr. Elwood White, pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Salem, organized a petition drive that gathered about 1,600 signatures in an effort to prevent beer sales at the ballpark.

White testified before an Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission hearing in March of 1980 that allowing fans to sip beer during the game would lead to rowdy behavior, drunken driving, inadequate parking and teen-age alcoholism.

But the Redbirds won their case. Delighted Municipal Field officials rushed beer-serving equipment to the ballpark in time for the home season opener, just weeks after the decision.

Attendance at that home opener was four times as high as it had been the previous year, with many in attendance admitting that beer was a large part of what lured them.

In recent years, Municipal Field has been called "the greatest outdoor bar in the Roanoke Valley."

by CNB