Seniors wait for hours for Senior Bar Golf wristbands

Some seniors are finding Senior Bar Golf wristbands harder to get than Duke basketball tickets.

Senior Bar Golf, which has been an annual event since 2009, begins at 10 p.m. Thursday. Ten Chapel Hill bars will act as “holes,” or stops, for the event.

A $5 wristband determines which bar a participant will start from and allows them free entry to every bar on the scorecard.

But these wristbands have been selling out quickly, and some seniors have resorted to waiting in line for hours to get one.

“Well, I didn’t get there two hours early so I didn’t get wristbands,” said Gigi Lytton, a senior global studies major.

Students have also been confused about who is sponsoring the event.

But senior Dasha Shaw, who was waiting outside of Wilson Library for wristbands said she thought the senior marshals were running the event. Shaw was waiting for wristbands that went on sale at 2 p.m. on Friday at 10:45 a.m.

This assumption is perhaps due to Senior Bar Golf’s “official unofficial” Facebook event that is being hosted by seven students, all of whom are Senior Marshals.

But according to Senior Marshal Rashmitha Vasa, the marshals have no involvement in the event.

“The University is not allowed to endorse the event, therefore the senior marshals are not running it,” Vasa said in a Facebook message.

According to the list of hosts on Facebook events from 2015 and 2014 Senior Bar Golf, a majority of the organizers have also been senior marshals.

In addition to confusion regarding the event’s hosts, there have also been questions as to where the money from the wristbands is going.

“We aren’t getting money from the wristbands,” said Jeremy Ferry, general manager of Carolina Coffee Shop.

The other nine bars involved in the event also confirmed they were not receiving any money from wristband sales.

One organizing member of the event, Andre Rowe Jr., a social co-chairperson of the 2016 senior marshals, posted a statement about the event’s proceeds on Facebook.

“Throughout the year we have put on several events free of charge for the entire class,” Rowe wrote in a statement. “We have also given seniors lots of free stuff and free food. 100 percent of the proceeds are used to subsidize the cost of all of the things that were done for our well deserving class! Please know that we are working tirelessly for you and would never do anything to take advantage of our fellow classmates.”

Rowe was unavailable for any additional comments as of press time.

According to the participating bars, the number of wristbands sold for each bar was determined by each venue’s capacity.

“We were asked about capacity and how many wristbands we felt comfortable giving out,” said Lauren Kleczkowski, co-owner of Country Fried Duck.

While the event should attract a majority of the senior class, Chapel Hill police say they have no plans to deploy additional officers on Franklin Street.

“We don’t generally do anything special,” said Donnie Rhoads, a patrol captain of the Chapel Hill Police Department.

Bars involved in this year’s Senior Bar Golf are Carolina Coffee Shop, Country Fried Duck, Goodfellows, La Residence, The Library, R&R Grill, The Strowd, Top of the Hill, He’s Not Here and Linda’s Bar and Grill.

“We’ve been involved since the start and it’s most definitely a successful event,” Ferry said.

city@dailytarheel.com