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Fans distracted by sex during Blue Jays game

By   |   May 18, 1990

TORONTO -- Some baseball fans think the Toronto Blue Jays' retractable roof SkyDome home should be renamed SexDome after fans watched a couple make love in a hotel suite that overlooks the playing field.

Tuesday night, during the team's 4-3 loss to the Seattle Mariners, those with binoculars could see an older man and a buxom, blond woman having sex in their suite.

Although the lights in the suite were off, the couple's room was illuminated by a bank of television lights in the SkyDome.

The incident Tuesday follows one several weeks ago where a male guest in the hotel, built into the SkyDome itself, masturbated in the window of his suite in front of thousands of Blue Jays fans.

Police went to his room but no charges were filed because he thought the window was fitted with one-way glass, SkyDome spokesman David Garrick said.

'A lot of the guests think it's one-way glass,' Garrick said.

'We're looking at putting tent cards in the rooms telling them it's not and getting them to sign waivers when they book in,' Garrick said.

Garrick said such behavior isn't condoned because 'we bill SkyDome as a family place.'

The SkyDome -- Toronto's $500 million sports and entertainment facility opened last spring with the world's first fully retractable roof -- has a 350-suite hotel built into its north end. About 70 of the suites, which cost more than $600 a night during peak periods, overlook the playing field.

Garrick said the couple had finished by the time police arrived Tuesday. Garrick said he didn't know if police told the couple what many in the crowd had seen.

Metro Toronto police Sgt. Brad Brigham said people who perform sex acts in SkyDome hotel suites witnessed by those in the stands could face criminal charges of performing an indecent act, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and or a $2,000 fine.

However, to be convicted, the accused would have to be intending to offend those they knew were watching, Brigham said.