rumours rumours glass bottles banned inside circuit

[dukla]

Down at Arnage it was complete confusion. The normal gate guys were absent Monday/Tuesday and so a couple of rookies were trying to enforce several French regulations that clearly didn't make complete sense to anyone.

1) As always Arnage opened officially on Wednesday. When we arrived midnight Monday it was "closed" despite the 6 or so hardly regulars already in place. At 8am Tuesday we were allowed in - while we were pitching the guy came over to explain Arnage only opened "tomorrow" - sadly all my French had left me by that stage and after waving at the folk who had pitched on Monday he departed.

2) Not much later when we we using a couple of cans of Carlsberg to assist with the erection he returned to explain no alcohol was allowed on site. By this stage one of our French folk was with us (having been told at the gate Arnage was closed but when I waved he was allowed in!) and by the time the Securite chappy left it seemed beer and wine were OK but not stronger alcohol. We were happy to confirm we were only drinking beer (at that stage!) and resolved to secure our 26 bottles of single malt on site rather than risk a car search next time we passed the gate.

Yeah - we were aware of Enceinte Generale restriction on weapons (including glass bottles), as well as Aire d'Accueil regulations entitling Securite to look at the contents of any vehicle. (Arnage campsite is technically outside the circuit.) We did decide our bottle mountain should be restricted to wine bottles and was thus somewhat feeble as we figured putting whisky bottles in could be construed as taking the piss. Especially after realising while we could Tippex some of the bottles from 40% to 0% we would still have a problem with the cask strength and others that were 46%, 46.3% etc.

Our group does contain several native French, none of whom could explain what the rule actually was (either before Aperitifs or at 4am when they were speaking fluent English!)

[gt6]

We never got searched going into the campsite at Tertre Rouge but several people were and had all glass taken away, most people were trying to avoid glass because they were aware of the problems so getting cans and plastic bottles at carrefore was difficult. We got most of our supplies in Bernay so had barrels of wine and kegs of beer. large kegs of beer turned out to be very good so further supplies purchased on Thursday/Friday at Carrefore.

Le mans was much nicer without the mountain of discarded beer bottles everywhere you tried to watch the race and broken glass in the campsite.

[Stu]

Does anyone know the real answer to why its banned? If its the circuit, then why were we told it wasn't allowed on Blue Nord when we arrived on Monday. Blue Nord's not part of the circuit in my opinion. None of us were searched but we did see some bag / vehicle searches being carried out both campsite entrance and circuit entrance.

[SpriteII]

Asking the French to apply a rule consistently, common guys you know better than that.

[knetter]

We had no probs getting into MB, no search, nothing. Business as usual. This was a feeble attempt to ban alchohol from the venue by the mayor. I can only hope he came to his senses and won't try to pull a stunt like this again next year. But I am affraid that next year it will state on the tickets not to bring beer in glass or cans or other alchoholic beverages onto the circuit and campsites. Pretty much like it already is with the moto24. If that happens, I shall go to Sebring from then on!