A Tampa Bay Buccaneers season ticket holder, backed by the ACLU of Florida, has filed suit to stop the pat-downs of fans going to football games at Raymond James Stadium.
The fan, Gordon Johnston, a high school civics teacher, said in a statement that he renewed his season tickets for this year and was never informed he would be subject to the pat-down searches recently mandated by the National Football League. He said the Bucs refused to give him a refund of his season ticket money when he asked.
Now, the ACLU has filed the lawsuit against the Tampa Sports Authority, which runs the stadium, asking the court to declare the rule in violation of the Florida Constitution.
“Football fans should not be forced to surrender our constitutional rights as the price of admission to the stadium,” Johnston said in a statement. “I am challenging these pat-down searches because I don’t like the idea of myself, my wife and my friends being touched without our consent.”
The NFL said in August it was requiring all teams to conduct the pat-downs of fans, in an attempt to prevent a terrorist attack by someone with explosives who gained entrance to a stadium.
Bucs fan: ”Don’t touch!”
October 13, 2005