By Jordan Kobritz
To supplement their regular work force, concessionaires such as Aramark and Centerplate solicit local non-profit groups – youth sports groups, church groups, scouting groups, service clubs, etc. – to staff concession stands during sporting events. That practice can be viewed as a financial bonanza for the groups or a reckless disregard for the community at large, depending on your perspective.
It should be noted at the outset that the legality of using volunteers under these circumstances is highly questionable. Merely designating a worker as a “volunteer” instead of an employee is hardly the legal test established by the courts to determine if someone should be exempt from employment laws and tax withholdings. But that isn’t the subject of this piece.
Concessionaires have a dual purpose in using volunteers. One, it allows the companies to curry favorable PR with the local community. More importantly, it increases a company’s profits. Unlike workers who are paid an hourly wage, in addition to employer expenses for FICA taxes, Worker’s Comp, unemployment taxes, insurance, etc., along with the cost of record keeping, volunteers work for free while the organizations they represent are paid a commission on sales. At one of its venues, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, home of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, Centerplate pays 8% on all alcohol sales and 9% on all food sales, percentages that are generally representative of the industry.
Under this arrangement, the more product the volunteers sell, the more they earn for their organizations. And the money can be very good, certainly more than can be generated from the traditional candy sales, bake sales and car washes that are the bane of non-profit fund raising. According to the website for Reliant Park in Houston, home of the NFL’s Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Aramark “contributed over $500,000” in 2012 to non-profit organizations in the greater Houston area.
Use of the word “contribute” is more than a little ingenuous. Aramark didn’t really contribute anything to anyone. The money was “earned” by the donated, i.e. free, labor of hundreds of volunteer workers. Volunteers are known to work long hours in sometimes less-than-ideal conditions that may not include air conditioning in hundred-degree weather or heat when the temperature is below freezing. Workers are usually required to show up at least two hours prior to an event and remain for an hour after the event is over, and many of them are on their feet the entire time. Some concession workers engage in backbreaking labor that can include jockeying beer kegs that weigh upwards of 165 pounds.
On the surface, using volunteers to staff concession operations at sporting events appears to be a win-win for the companies and the non-profit groups that supply the labor. The groups receive money for their worthwhile activities and the companies pay less than they otherwise would if they hired their own personnel. Concessionaires also avoid the attendant hassles that come with hiring and supervising additional employees. But there is a dark – and sometimes tragic – underside to the practice of using volunteers to sell concessions.
Volunteers, by definition, are not regular, fulltime employees. As such, they may work some events but not others, depending on their schedules or interests. That irregular work schedule oftentimes leads to inexperienced workers, which can be especially problematic when it comes to alcohol sales. In fairness, most concession companies require volunteers — along with full time personnel – to receive some level of training if they dispense alcoholic beverages. Centerplate requires all volunteers who sell alcohol to undergo a three-hour class in responsible alcohol sales. The class is taught by Training for Intervention Procedures or TIPS, an Arlington, Virginia based company that provides alcohol training for a number of concessionaires.
The training is designed to teach volunteers proper protocol in, among other things, carding customers, handling intoxicated fans, and how to spot signs of drunkenness — such things as slurred speech, poor balance and glassy eyes. If volunteers pass a test at the end of their training they are “certified” to sell alcohol for three years. But that’s not nearly sufficient training given the circumstances volunteers deal with. Even the best trained, full-time concession worker will find it difficult to assess sobriety in a stadium setting, with hundreds of boisterous fans waiting in line clamoring to be served. For example, on game day at Lucas Oil Stadium there are upwards of 600 points of distribution, most staffed by volunteers, who can number 2,500. Couple that with the incentive to keep the taps flowing — remember, the more beer that’s sold, the more money is raised for those worthwhile causes – and the use of volunteer workers can be a prescription for disaster.
A recent case demonstrated just how dangerous the practice of using volunteers can be. In 2010, Trenton Gaff was driving home from an Indianapolis Colts game when he swerved off the road and ran over two 12-year old girls, killing one of them and injuring the other. Gaff told police that he had consumed five beers while attending the game earlier in the day. The mother of the deceased girl, Betina Pierson, sued Centerplate. The case was dismissed on summary judgment and is currently on appeal. Gaff pled guilty to operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and was sentenced to a year in prison.
The suit against Centerplate was based on the state’s dram shop law which makes businesses that sell alcohol to an obviously intoxicated individual responsible for the damages caused to another. Despite their intent to protect the public, dram shop laws may operate in the reverse. Plaintiffs are required to prove that sellers of alcohol acted in a “reckless” or “irresponsible” manner or “knowingly” sold alcohol to an intoxicated person, standards that are difficult to meet.
The Pierson case is not the first of its kind. There have been other wrongful death and injury cases brought against stadium concessionaires, although not all of them involved the use of volunteer workers. And in fairness, concession operators have adopted a variety of policies and procedures in addition to alcohol training – shutting down alcohol sales prior to the end of an event, limiting the number of drinks sold to one individual, reducing the size of beverage containers, among others – in an effort to reduce drunkenness among sports fans.
Despite those efforts, there is no way to guarantee that all fans will leave a sporting event sober, even if all alcohol servers are experienced. But there is little doubt that the practice of using volunteers to dispense alcohol, and the formula under which they are compensated, increases the risk of drunken fans spilling out of a stadium onto the public streets.
According to Centerplate General Manager John Eric Stockholm, the company sold between $17-18 million in food and beverage at Lucas Oil Stadium and the adjacent Indiana Convention Center in 2012, meaning as much as $1.5 million was earned for non-profit organizations in the greater Indianapolis area. That’s a lot of money, but at what cost?
Jordan Kobritz is a former attorney, CPA, and Minor League Baseball team owner. He is a Professor in the Sport Management Department at SUNY Cortland and also maintains the blog: http://sportsbeyondthelines.com Jordan can be reached at jordan.kobritz@cortland.edu.
Betina Pierson is represented by Dan Chamberlain of the Indianapolis firm of Doehrman Chamberlain.
