No expanded alcohol sales at Martin Stadium this season

If you’d been holding out any hope you’d be able to get a beer inside the friendly confines of Martin Stadium this season, you can forget it. The Lewiston Tribune reports the school is going to wait until at least next year before resubmitting their application to the state Liquor and Cannabis Board.

The LCB told the Tribune they had questions for the university ahead of the planned start of liquor sales last year, questions they hadn’t responded to by November. At the time, the school chose to look at the issue with the LCB because they don’t just consider it a football issue. From the Tribune:

“University officials are viewing the request as a university-wide issue, he said. Allowing additional alcohol sales would be a precedent-setting move for other universities in the state, he said, in addition to affecting WSU football fans and the Pullman community.”

Public comments were generally in favor of the move but cited concerns like an increase in impaired driving and the potential for on-campus violence.

As we highlighted before, part of President Kirk Schulz and athletic director Bill Moos’ plan for getting the department into the black is expanded beer and liquor sales. The fiscal year total in the letter from our story last September indicates roughly $600,000/year in profit from sales but the Tribune reports Schulz was even more bullish on the first day of school last year, saying they could bring in up to a million.

Whether you’re in favor of expanded alcohol sales in the stadium or not, it’s undoubtedly a big part of the plan to make the athletic department profitable; a part of the plan they’ll be without for at least another year.