This week the Ford government announced that tailgate parties would be allowed at Ontario sporting events as they are at many U.S. venues.

With its echoes of “buck-a-beer,” critics have suggested this is yet another liquid leisure-based announcement designed to distract us from the cuts and other controversial policies this government is quickly rolling out. Changing the licence plate motto had a similar effect. A largely inconsequential move, it somehow manages to get everyone riled up: the motto is meant to represent us so it’s personal and hard to ignore.

Keeping all of that in mind, the idea of tailgating in Ontario does bring up a couple of interesting thoughts, aside from worrying about the designated drivers for these vehicle-based parties.

The first is it’s part of a wider loosening up of this province’s famously puritanical liquor laws, a process that was already underway with the previous Liberal government. The Ontario budget released this week gives municipalities regulatory power to determine if people can have a drink in the park or other recreation spaces. It’s unclear if tailgate-style openness would apply to cultural festivals such as Pride or Caribana.

I’m on the record here numerous times arguing that prohibiting people — er, The People — from opening a beer or bottle of wine at a picnic in the park or at the beach is unfair. In this increasingly dense city where people live in apartments, why should the only people who have the liberty to enjoy a drink outdoors be those who can afford their own backyard, cottage or who are willing to pay to do so on a restaurant patio?

Public space is our civic living room. The sky won’t fall here just as it doesn’t in other places where this is allowed. There are already laws governing anti-social behaviour that will take care of those who get belligerent. If we prohibited everything that had the potential for belligerence, there wouldn’t be a car on the road.

Speaking of cars, the other interesting angle to think about is just where in Ontario proper, American-style tailgate parties could happen. Here in Toronto the three biggest major league teams play in two venues, the Rogers Centre and Scotiabank Arena, which essentially have no surface lots nearby where classic park-and-party tailgates could take place. The streets could certainly be shut down to traffic — as Maple Leaf Square is for the playoffs right now — but that’s more a festival scene than a tailgate party.

In October, I went to a Cleveland Browns game. Walking to the waterfront stadium with thousands of Clevelanders was exciting, a real event. Parking lots around the stadium hosted some very elaborate parties. Things got sombre when the Browns ultimately lost but walking through downtown afterwards as the parties slowly wound down was a sublime experience, even a kilometre or two from the stadium by the now-cleaned up Cuyahoga River. For the afternoon, downtown Cleveland was transformed.

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Toronto would have a hard time pulling this kind of thing off, though only for the last decade or so. When the SkyDome was still called the SkyDome there were ample parking lots around the stadium, and when the Air Canada Centre opened in 1999, it too had tailgate-ready lots nearby. Just about all of them have been filled in with new buildings.

BMO Field’s setting at Exhibition Place is different. Yet despite the many parking lots there, Toronto FC games have still developed a European feel to them as fans march through the nearby streets on their way to games. Still, there would be room for a traditional tailgate scene there, especially for Argos games.

Hamilton, the closest CFL city to Toronto, also has conditions that make tailgating difficult. When I first saw the old Ivor Wynne Stadium on an early visit to the city I was struck by how it was nestled in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, also a very European way to situate a stadium. Its replacement in the same location, Tim Hortons Field, has the same urban cosiness about it, with just one small parking lot nearby.

The Ottawa Redblacks also have very little room for tailgating since the redevelopment of Lansdowne Park into an entertainment and shopping centre with underground parking. Of the biggest Ontario teams that leaves just the Canadian Tire Centre where Ottawa Senators fans could enjoy true parking lot tailgating, but should the team ever move to a central LeBreton Flats location, as has been proposed, it’s likely extensive surface parking lots won’t be part of the plan.

Big league sports stadiums are not always the most urban and urbane of buildings. Though it might be bad for tailgating, Ontario cities have done a relatively good job of urbanizing them.

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