Mom takes on Colts' stadium vendor over beer sales, daughter's death

Tears fall freely as Betina Pierson recalls the worst day of her life — the day a drunken driver killed her daughter.

That man told police he had five beers at an Indianapolis Colts game before he plowed an SUV into Tierra Rae Pierson and her cousin January Canada as the girls walked on the shoulder of Bluff Road just north of Southport Road on Dec. 19, 2010.

Five beers — more alcohol, Pierson insists, than should have been served to Trenton Gaff that day.

Pierson wants South Carolina-based Centerplate, the food and beverage provider for Lucas Oil Stadium, to end a practice she and some other critics contend encourages drunkenness in the stands and — Pierson believes — set in motion the tragic chain of events that killed her daughter.

Centerplate's concession stands are staffed mainly by volunteers raising money for organizations such as a youth sports groups, church groups and Scout troops. At Lucas Oil Stadium, those volunteers are paid a commission of 8 percent on alcohol and 9 percent on food that goes to their nonprofit organization. The more the volunteers sell, the more they earn for their group.

"This is a classic case where a business puts money before the safety and welfare of people," said Stephen Barth, a professor of hospitality law at the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston. "It's just an absolute reckless disregard of the safety and welfare of not only the people consuming alcohol but the community at large."

Others disagree. It is, in fact, a system used commonly in sports and other entertainment venues across America and one that supporters in Indianapolis say has greatly benefited the community by providing an opportunity to support worthy organizations.

"It's been a program that's just been outstanding for the community," said Barney Levengood, executive director of the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium. "I think they are there for the right reasons, and it's a program I would like to continue."

Centerplates operates in more than 300 sports, entertainment and convention venues in North America and the United Kingdom, according to its website. That includes nine National Football League stadiums, including Lucas Oil and Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego and FedEx Field in Washington D.C., said Centerplate spokeswoman Diana Evans.

Aramark, another major concessions operator, has contracts at 13 NFL stadiums and similarly uses volunteers to staff many of its game day booths, including at Paul Brown Stadium where the Cincinnati Bengals play. Aramark also operates concessions at Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville and Victory Field.

And there's no doubt about the monetary benefit to local organizations: Centerplate, for example, sold $17 million to $18 million in food and alcohol at Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indiana Convention Center during NFL games and other events in 2010, according to testimony by General Manager John Eric Stockholm that was part of a lawsuit filed by Pierson against Centerplate.

A Marion County judge dismissed the claim. Person is appealing.

"If they make a change," she said, "maybe another mom won't be sitting somewhere three years after her daughter's died and not be able to live, not be able to function."

Hard to limit alcohol

Lucas Oil Stadium concessions have been staffed by volunteers since it opened in 2008. Levengood noted that all workers, volunteers included, must complete a three-hour class in responsible alcohol sales.

The Training for Intervention Procedures, or TIPS, class teaches ways to spot signs of drunkenness — slurred speech, poor balance, glassy eyes. Workers who pass the test become TIPS certified for three years.

"Usually when you get volunteers, those people really need the training," said Adam Chafetz, president of Arlington, Va.-based TIPS. Chafetz said the class teaches how to recognize and deal with intoxicated fans, including strategies to politely cut them off.

Volunteers check identification cards of all patrons who appear to be under 40, Levengood said. They sell no beer larger than 16 ounces and sell a maximum of two drinks per individual per transaction. All alcohol sales cease by the end of the third quarter.

The policies are similar throughout the NFL. The league recommends that teams sell no more than two 20-ounce beers per transaction.

"This is the current policy we follow in consultation with the NFL, the Colts and Centerplate," Levengood said. The Colts did not respond to a voicemail left with the team's public relations department.

Dan Chamberlain, the Indianapolis attorney representing Pierson, said even the best trained concession booth workers can't assess drunkenness in a stadium when there are hundreds of patrons waiting to be served.

"It is an assembly line of drunks," Chamberlain said.

This NFL season, drunken fans have injured themselves and others.

In October, an unruly fan at the Colts-Denver Broncos game fell onto a woman at Lucas Oil, sending her tumbling over her seat and smacking her head two rows down.

In November, a fan was sliding down a banister when he fell from the stands and landed on another fan a level below at Ralph Wilson Stadium during a Buffalo Bills game. Both were injured.

In a 2011 study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, University of Minnesota researchers tested the blood-alcohol level of fans leaving professional baseball and football games and found about 8 percent were above the legal driving limit. The study estimated that some 5,000 fans exiting a typical NFL game would test above .08 percent blood-alcohol content. That is the level at which a driver in Indiana is considered intoxicated.

Concession operators have the same responsibilities as taverns and restaurants when it comes to alcohol sales. But unlike taverns and restaurants, Chamberlain said, it is more difficult to track the number of drinks a person has purchased in a stadium, so new methods of restricting alcohol sales should be adopted.

Stadiums, he said, can require fans to wear wristbands with tear-off pull tabs, or they can use driver's license scanners that track the number of drinks a person has purchased. An individual who reaches the limit would be cut off.

"This case is a lot more than just trying to address that harm. It's trying to address the policy that needs to be changed," Chamberlain said. "We need more control of alcohol sales at large facilities."

Chafetz, president of the TIPS training program, said the wristband idea and license scanners would not be practical in a stadium or other large venue.

"Keeping track of all that and putting all that on vendors might be a little over the top."

Scanning equipment, he said, would break under the constant use in a large venue. The pull tab wristbands could be shared. Any device or method to count the drinks would only divert the server's attention from using behavioral cues to assess whether to sell alcohol to that next person in line.

Levengood said policies at Lucas Oil Stadium are continually under review.

"I think the policies are ever-evolving. As our society evolves, policies change ...," he said. "We work directly with the Colts and the NFL to make reasonable policies, common sense policies, that try to balance responsible alcohol consumption and the presenting of an NFL game."

Driver test at 0.20 percent

The Colts, like other NFL teams, encourage fans to use designated drivers. More than 4,000 Colts fans pledged to be designated drivers in 2012. Elsewhere, Mothers Against Drunk Driving partners with 14 NFL teams — including the Bills, Bengals and Miami Dolphins — to meet with fans during pregame tailgate parties and urge them to use designated drivers.

Gaff, the drunken driver who killed Pierson's daughter and injured her niece, was driving a Ford Explorer that went onto the shoulder and struck the 12-year-old girls walking in the 6700 block of Bluff Road. Gaff pulled the vehicle over and waited for police.

"I went to change the song on the CD player. I know I didn't swerve off the road," he told police, according to court documents.

Gaff, who had a 2004 conviction for misdemeanor drunken driving in Hamilton County, told police he had five beers at the Colts game and one more after the game. Gaff's blood-alcohol content tested at 0.20 percent. Police found Dos Equis beers, unopened, on the passenger side floor.

Accident reconstruction investigators concluded that Gaff did leave the road and hit the girls going about 45 mph. January was thrown into a ditch; Tierra was launched some 30 feet in front of the vehicle and landed on the pavement.

In September 2011, Gaff pleaded guilty to operating a vehicle with a blood-alcohol content of 0.15 or higher causing death, a Class B felony, and operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a misdemeanor.

He declined The Star's interview request.

Grieving mom to plead with fans

Pierson, who now lives in Thorntown, said that after her daughter's death she's been unable to work and has distanced herself from friends and family members.

She has boxed up most of Tierra's photographs and put them in storage. But when she needs to, Pierson still looks at those pictures on her daughter's old Facebook page.

In that first year of grief, Pierson began turning her body into a tattooed tapestry of pain. Tierra's name is on her neck in large dark letters.

On her right hand is "I love you." On her left, "my darling baby."

On her back are angel wings and lines from a poem that Tierra wrote: "One day when you're alone you'll look out the window in the middle of a snowstorm and very cautiously say to no one, isn't someone missing."

Pierson's angry at Gaff. But her anger also is directed at the Colts and Centerplate.

Pierson is suing under the dram shop liability law, which tries to hold businesses accountable for excessively serving alcohol. However, the law, experts say, protects bar and restaurant owners and stadium concession operators from all but the strongest civil cases. Plaintiffs must prove that bartenders were reckless, irresponsible or knowingly sold to a person who was intoxicated.

The law makes these difficult cases for plaintiffs to win. Even when juries find in favor of the victim, cases may be reversed on appeal.

In one of the largest judgments against a stadium vendor, a New Jersey jury in 2005 ordered Aramark to pay $105 million and the driver an additional $30 million to the family of Antonia Verni, a 2-year-old who was paralyzed from the neck down in a car wreck caused by a drunken football fan after a New York Giants game.

The fan, Daniel Lanzaro, kept buying beers at the stadium even though he was intoxicated during a Giants game in 1999. Lanzaro was sentenced to five years in prison.

In 2006, an appellate court overturned that $105 million judgment against Aramark.

Pierson knows she may lose her lawsuit, but she vows to keep fighting —and on different fronts. She plans to take her pleas directly to fans before the Colts final regular season home game Dec. 29.

She said she'll talk to fans before kickoff and hand them a letter imploring them to drink responsibly.

"If you have people who want to drink," Pierson said, "that's fine, but don't go out in public where you know you're the one who's going to drive home and go to your car and start driving like it's no big deal, like it's just your life.

"If you don't care to die, that's on you. My daughter didn't need to die. My daughter didn't want to die. Somebody chose to drink too much, and because of his choice, my daughter's gone."

Star librarian Cathy Knapp contributed to this story. Call Star reporter Vic Ryckaert at (317) 444-2701. Follow him on Twitter: @VicRyc.