UPDATED: California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed a bill into law that allows exclusive areas inside Steve Ballmer ‘s $2B Intuit Dome to sell alcohol until 4 a.m. At every other club in Los Angeles, alcohol sales are prohibited past 2 a.
m. The law never specifically mentions Ballmer, the Intuit Dome or the billionaire’s Los Angeles Clippers who play there, but it seems to carefully constructed to allow the fun to continue until 4 a.m.
at just one L.A. venue.
AB 3206, introduced by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor and passed by the State Senate in late August, authorizes “alcoholic beverage sales to occur between 2 a.m. and 4 a.
m. upon the on-sale licensed premises operated in a fully enclosed arena with a seating capacity of at least 18,000 seats located in the City of Inglewood .” Those sales must “occur in a private area in the arena no larger than 2,500 square feet in the hours immediately following a day on which a sporting event, concert, or other major event, or a private event not open to the public, has occurred in the arena.
” Conveniently, the Intuit Dome seats 18,000. The Forum — also owned by Ballmer — only seats 17,500, and so cannot avail itself of the benefits of AB 3206. And while the nearby SoFi Stadium seats upward of 70,000 for Rams games and such, it is not “a fully enclosed arena,” as required by the bill.
That makes the Intuit Dome, quite literally, the only game in town for legal alcohol sales after 2 a.m. PREVIOUSLY on August 21.
