2023-06-26 23:51:34
No alcohol in the stands of the 2024 Olympics? Yes, but not for everyone. While the organizers of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games have decided not to seek exemptions from the Evin law by serving only non-alcoholic beverages in the general public areas of the events’ competition sites, this will not be the case in the VIP areas. People who follow the events from the boxes will be able to consume “a top-of-the-range selection of champagne, spirits, wines, beers”, as the organizing committee explains in one of his hospitality announcements online on its website.
In principle, the Evin law of January 10, 1991 is however clear. “The sale and distribution of beverages from groups 2 to 5 (which include all alcoholic beverages) are prohibited in stadiums, physical education halls, gymnasiums and, in general, in all establishments for physical and sporting activities”, emphasizes the text. The public health code, via son article L3335-4, makes it possible to derogate, on the whole of the stadium or the hall, from this rule a maximum of ten times a year and within a limit of 48 hours, and with the authorization of the mayor by decree.
A “restaurant” license in the dressing rooms
A legal possibility explained by the organizers of the Rugby World Cup in France (September 8 – October 28), but which only allows spectators to be served “drinks from the third group”: “wine, beer, cider , perry, mead, to which are added natural sweet wines, as well as blackcurrant creams and fermented fruit or vegetable juices containing 1.2 to 3 degrees of alcohol, liqueur wines, wine-based aperitifs and strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant or cherry liqueurs, containing no more than 18 degrees of pure alcohol”.
VIPs benefit from another legal trick to enjoy a game with alcohol, and which is much more permanent. Lodges generally benefit from a “restaurant” or “catering” licence. This makes it possible to serve all alcoholic beverages, without restriction of degree, to people present in this part of the site. This allows the organizers of the 2024 Olympics to offer this offer to their high-end customers.
This white area of the Evin law surprised the Minister of Health at the time, Agnès Buzyn, in 2019. Asked by BFMTV about this paradox when she opposed a bill from deputies to reintroduce alcohol in the stadiums, she had assured to ignore this possibility. “If a question must be asked, it is rather this one, that of eliminating alcohol in the VIP boxes”, she had replied to her interviewer, Jean-Jacques Bourdin, in the form of a joke.
“When you belong to the good bourgeoisie, you have the right to drink”
This distortion between lodges and public space has already been pointed out by several elected officials. In 2018, the senator from Isère Michel Savin (Les Républicains) split a question to the Ministry of Sports where he pointed to the “random application in the territory” of alcohol consumption in the stadium. “Obtaining a small restaurant license or a restaurant license also makes it possible to permanently derogate from the ban on the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages on the premises. This is often the process used for the opening of VIP lounges in stadiums, ”the ministry replied to him.
“When you belong to the good bourgeoisie, you have the right to drink, while the lower classes do not have the right to afford a small beer”, was indignant in 2015 in an article by L’Express the PRG deputy from Calvados, Alain Tourret. The latter had presented an amendment to the bill for the growth and activity of Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy, to allow the serving of alcoholic beverages of less than 3 degrees in sports arenas. He ended up withdrawing it after seeing another of his amendments being accepted by the National Assembly against the advice of the government.
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