The Week in Sports

Downtown Bars Sound Alarm on Unruly Lakers Fans

Exhibit A
Exhibit A Photo: LouieBaur via Flickr

Over the past week, we’ve looked at lousy celebrity tippers and celebrity superheros who give great gratuities. Today, the fun continues, as it turns out fans of The Lakers are the sports world’s equivalent to Jeremy Piven and fans of The Kings look much more like Shaq. That’s because Downtown’s restaurants and bars tell Blogdowntown all about the horrors of serving Lakers fans and the relative ease of providing food and drink to our local hockey devotees.

As The Clippers, Lakers, and Kings all prepare to draw big playoff crowds to the area surrounding Staples Center, the blog asks our local booze-dealers to break down their feelings on all three Staples Center teams. According to the servers, Kings fans appear to be eating and drinking the most, though their tastes veer towards crappy mass-market pilsners more than quality ale and hard liquor. Fortunately for waiters and bartenders, Kings fans are also the best tippers, leaving the biggest gratuities and generally being the best-behaved, despite their chosen sport’s reputation for blood-lust.

Clippers fans, as one can imagine, are mellow sorts of fellows that are laid back, spending game time mulling over wine and Champagne and generally not giving a shit. They, like the team, are rarely a smash hit or pressing problem for anybody.

Lakers fans, of course, sound like some of the team’s players as well, as they’re kind of considered giant jerks. Almost all the bars questioned bemoaned Lakers nation, with a bartender at Wolfgang Puck at L.A. Live complaining that the crew gets testy when things don’t come fast enough, possibly a result of “trying to get drunk before the game” on beer and hard liquor. Another bartender claims Lakers fans “rarely…buy a full meal” and are penny-pinchers who can’t tip.

But that’s far from the biggest issue with the purple and gold, as Lakers fans are more prone to wilding out as big games come to their conclusions. A manager at Big Wang’s claims she had to hide the glassware at the end of the 2010 Finals to prevent it from being smashed, while customers apparently tried to throw somebody into a fire pit.

Of course, as you may recall, some of these same Downtown venues were complaining when Lakers fans weren’t coming to drink at their places, but that’s apparently another story.

Lakers fans are most rowdy, worst tippers, says DTLA bar staff [BlogDowntown]

Downtown Bars Sound Alarm on Unruly Lakers Fans