A Sixers fan messaged us Tuesday morning with an interesting concern about home games at the Wells Fargo Center.

They’ve noticed recent issues stemming from a security measure pertaining to seats bordering the home locker room tunnel, which are now bound to the guidelines described in this notice:

The concern here is obvious. There’s one minute remaining in the 2nd or 4th quarter, and now you have to make way for a security guard? It would seem fugazi on the surface to have to vacate your paid-for seat at all during a game, let alone when James Harden or Jayson Tatum is about to line up a buzzer-beater.

At last night’s game, the fan explained that everyone was already on their feet in the fourth quarter, so the security guards “found a way to just essentially stand on top of the people with the end seats, without vacating them.” That created a situation where security was squeezed into the area and hugging the fence above the tunnel leading to the Sixers’ side of the locker rooms, looking something like this:

As for the second quarter, when spectators were sitting, the fan notes that someone occupying one of these seats was told to leave, which saw that person and the person sitting next to them both get up and cede their spot to security.

It results in a recurring problem, the fan says, where an argument inevitably takes place, resulting in a Sixers’ representative having to come over to defuse the situation. There was a shouting match about this just last night. Furthermore, since the stewards are posted only every few rows, if you really want to dump a bucket of popcorn on a player’s head, you could simply avoid security by moving to a different row.

We talked with a Sixers spokesperson, who explained that the security measure comes via NBA directive, the result of fans making unwanted contact with players. Whenever an incident, for example, of grabbing, touching, or reaching takes place, that gets reported to the league office, which in turn asked the Sixers to improve security around the tunnels. After several other measures were deemed inadequate, the team settled on this approach.

You’ll notice that the Sixers recently added a black tarp-looking thing over the visitor’s entrance/exit, which creates an extended barrier of sorts, but on the home side, it remains open for several rows, with the security guards stepping in. That could change next season, the spokesperson said, with the possibility of that same structure being added to the Sixers’ side in addition to the visitor side. As noted on the player safety message above, the Sixers say they’ve offered to move fans to different areas in order to avoid the security conflict, which hasn’t always been a popular alternative, considering the prime location of these seats.

It would seem as though this the latest effort in NBA compliance, and a better solution could be in place for next season.