Hours before the afternoon start of the Dodgers\u2019 home opener Tuesday, fans converged on the stadium shortly after the gates opened at 10 a.m. dressed in every iteration of Dodger blue — hats, jackets, long-sleeve shirts and sleeveless ones.<\/p>\n
For many, it is a decades-old tradition — gathering up family and friends, dressing in blue, splaying open the back of the SUV and unwrapping food and drinks in the stadium parking lots with their panoramic views of the city. But this year, doing that brought some unwelcome attention.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to tailgate,\u201d Ray Barbosa said, standing in a Dodgers parking lot with his friends next to his GMC Sierra.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing big enough to carry a party,\u201d his friend Tom Lerma said of the Sierra.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat means we\u2019ve been visited four times in seven minutes,\u201d Barbosa said, referring to the seemingly ever-present Dodgers security and LAPD officers who approached on bikes, in carts and on foot to suggest that fans move inside the stadium. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can take your food,\u201d offered one.<\/p>\n
Security personnel said it\u2019s not just the illegal drinking of alcohol in parking lots that is forbidden. All tailgating — or congregating — is off-limits in the vast expanses of parking lots around the stadium. For longtime fans, that\u2019s crushing a tradition as cherished as watching the actual game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this since we were in high school,\u201d said Roberto Ortiz, 30, an assistant chef at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey.<\/p>\n
He and his friends were dining on tuna salad tostadas and Coke and Gatorade for the gathering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of deters us coming early," Ortiz said. "We\u2019ll just stay home, barbecue and watch it on TV.\u201d <\/p>\n
— Carla Hall <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hours before the afternoon start of the Dodgers\u2019 home opener Tuesday, fans converged on the stadium shortly after the gates opened at 10 a.m. dressed in every iteration of Dodger blue — hats, jackets, long-sleeve shirts and sleeveless ones. For many, it is a decades-old tradition — gathering up family and friends, dressing in blue, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}