Allegations of a fight dominated the HBO “Spring Break in the Winter” promotional tour stop at Temple, Wednesday, Dec. 5.
At 10 p.m., students were lined up in front of the Draught Horse, 1431 Cecil B. Moore Ave., waiting to get inside for the chance to win one of two trips to Cancun. The event was scheduled to run from 9 p.m. to close.
At 11:30 p.m., campus police cars blocked the corner of Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Broad Street. A different crowd of students was outside.
HBO employee Kaitlyn Yamaho said she saw two males engage in a physical confrontation by the front windows, one fled through the side door and was later arrested.
Temple police and Draught Horse employees claim nothing happened.
“There was no physical fighting. No fists were thrown. No one was arrested,” said Draught Horse manager Brian Maguire. Maguire asserted that the campus police were present to ensure students didn’t loiter outside the building and that the police are always present at the establishment.
“No one else is getting in. We’ve reached maximum capacity,” said Maguire, who estimated the head count at approximately 375 and asserted no one was evacuated from the building.
Campus police said they had no information and refused to comment.
But event staff and students who were inside saw something different.
“There was some kind of fight, I guess,” said event coordinator Doug Melville. “Everything’s going well, except for the fight, but those things happen.”
Despite the police standing guard outside, the bar being too crowded, and passage to the stage being nearly impossible, students had a good time.
In conjunction with USA Student Travel and Urcute.com, HBO will be visiting campuses across the East Coast, including U Mass, U Conn, and Penn State.
In addition to promoting new shows on the cable network, HBO gave away two all-expense paid trips to Cancun for spring break. Also, there were scheduled DVD and CD giveaways and a contest to find the “cutest girl” at Temple.
Though students were invited to show up at 9 p.m., the giveaways and contests didn’t begin until midnight.
Melville explained they waited for the Temple-Duke men’s basketball game to end. “It’s a pretty big game,” said Melville.
At the last event, Melville pulled in over 700 Syracuse University students and HBO staff officials said nothing like what happened at Temple occurred. They attributed the incident to the size of the crowd.
To assure nothing else occurred, Draught Horse employees were stationed in front of the stage and at the doors.
“It’s fun for the kids. Not everyone gets to go on spring break. We bring spring break to them. We just couldn’t bring the sand,” said 24-year-old Melville.
Co-sponsor USA Student Travel, arranged the travel and hotel accommodations for the winners, Sathya Levin and Ashley Miller.
Urcute.com, an online photo gallery, posts each of the tour stops on their Web site.
Postings for this event are expected to be online by Thursday morning.
Students interested in signing up for spring break vacations should call USA Student Travel at 617-427-1800.
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