The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party Crashing

For those not in the know, the Florida-Georgia game held this past weekend is known as The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Whether the moniker is factual, nobody really knows. It may be true in the Guinness Book of Records sense, or it may be true in the “best burgers in town” sense. Either way, there’s a lot of drinking going on outside. And since it is a college football game, the local authorities apparently don’t take too kindly to underage drinking:

Authorities said they arrested a record 252 people in connection with underage possession of alcohol at the Florida vs. Georgia Football Classic.

The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage and Tobacco agents along with partners from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and the University of North Florida made the arrests between Friday and Saturday. They swept areas surrounding the stadium, The Landing and RV City.

“It’s no secret that the game is often called the ‘world’s largest outdoor cocktail party,’” said DBPR Secretary Charles Drago. “The fact is that these are two college football teams and approximately half of all college students are not old enough to legally consume alcohol.”

The crackdown was part of the state’s drive to stop underage drinking.

via 252 Arrested For Underage Drinking At Football Classic – Orlando News Story – WESH Orlando.

College students drinking? Surely you jest!

Apparently the cooperative task force felt this game was symbolically important in their fight against underage drinking. Perhaps this is true, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but hundreds of thousands of underage college students will drink every Saturday anyway. In fact, only arresting 252 students is an awful arrest record. College football and underage drinking go hand in hand. You can simplify the equation even further in that college and underage drinking are inseparable, football just provides an accepted platform for public consumption.

For whatever reason, I imagine this operation was spearheaded by someone that looked and acted like Buford T Justice.