For the first time in Beaver Stadium's 46-year history, Penn State football fans will be prohibited from having open containers of alcohol in the tailgating areas around the stadium while the game is underway.

The university-run newswire, www.live.psu.edu, reported yesterday that the university "is prohibiting tailgate parties in the lots around Beaver Stadium between kickoff and the final whistle."

However, Tyrone Parham, assistant director of police operations for the Penn State University Police, said the newswire report's use of the term "tailgate parties" was "a little misleading to a lot of folks."

"People will be allowed to tailgate, but they just can't have open containers of alcohol during the games," Parham said. "They can hang out, throw Frisbees, eat hot dogs, it's just [that] you can't drink alcohol."

At Saturday's game, University Police will be flexible with tailgaters and not issue citations for violating the new policy, Parham said. He added that they would be handing out fliers to inform tailgaters of the new policy, in hopes that later on in the season Penn State football fans will become accustomed to it.

"Later on this season, when we get a feel that the public knows about the rule, then we'll certainly start enforcing it," Parham said.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said that a committee of representatives from University Police, State College Police, the Intercollegiate Athletics office, and the Penn State administration met several times over the past nine months before deciding to implement the ban.

"This will give people a chance to focus on the team," Mahon said. He added that excessive consumption of alcohol has been a growing problem during football weekends. "We can't have crowds of people stacking pyramids of Bud Light in the parking lot and getting out of control."

Parham said he wished the university could have announced the decision earlier than yesterday, which was only three days before the start of the season.

"We wanted it out a lot earlier," he said. "Ideally, we would have liked to promote this last football season, or at least last spring. Unfortunately, it's now three days before the game. We have to do the best we can."

Mahon said that since the university is "getting a lot of good attention this week, it seemed like good timing" to issue the decision.

"It's a change that people are going to need to learn over time," Mahon said. "We're going to view these first few weeks as an educational effort."