Parents Weekends in the past haven’t been as wild as Moms Weekends, but this weekend could still bring crowding and intoxication-related offenses.
Parents proudly wearing their green and white Bobcat spirit wear will flood the streets of Athens this weekend.
They are here to clean their kids’ apartments, spend money at Uptown eateries and hit the bars for Ohio University’s Parents Weekend.
The town’s two police forces — Athens Police Department and OU Police Department — stay alert for special event weekends, such as Parents and Dads weekends in fall semester, and Moms Weekend in the spring.
APD Chief Tom Pyle said he thinks this weekend will be a typical Parents Weekend.
“I don’t think there’s any comparison to (Moms and Dads weekends). ... Those are typically a little more wild,” Pyle said.
Pyle said the most common problems he sees during Parents Weekend are a few traffic accidents, congested lines at restaurants and the occasional call that a bar won’t serve alcoholic beverages to parents who are buying.
“You’re allowed to buy, that’s it,” Pyle said. “We can’t force them to serve you.”
Pyle said it’s common for some parents to misunderstand the law and believe it’s their right to buy alcohol for their kids.
“Quite frankly, the bar can say, ‘no, we don’t allow that because it gets hectic,’” he said.
Some parents buy drinks for their kids’ friends, but Pyle said he sees some parents ending up in trouble because of it.
Lt. Tim Ryan of OUPD said there have been instances of a parent and child being arrested at once.
“I haven’t seen both parents and their kid go to jail, but I definitely have seen things like mother and daughter arrests. It’s usually a mother and child,” Ryan said. “I don’t know what it is about moms.”
OUPD sees mostly drinking-related offenses, Ryan said.
“Many of the issues we see are intoxication related, like most of the things we deal with,” Ryan said.
A 2015 Post article describes an incident where two moms were arrested a few years ago for assaulting a police officer during Moms Weekend.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="399adf40-59d5-11e5-8a9f-975f36283175"}}
Kelly Benjamin, a sophomore studying health services administration, said having both parents present might make the difference in the two weekends.
“I think Parents Weekend is more low-key than Dads or Moms Weekend,” she said. “Because it’s both of them there, there’s less push to hit the bars. I feel like when there’s just one, they get more crazy.”
Michelle Frantz, a junior studying journalism, has had her father come to Dads Weekend, but her parents have never come to Parents Weekend. It’s too early for her to miss them, she said.
“It’s mostly because it hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen them,” Frantz said. “It’s not that I don’t love them, there’s just other things happening on campus.”
@baileygallion
@Fair3Julia
