Seniors from Keene State College went bar to bar to celebrate the end of their first senior semester with their teams and friends on Sunday, Nov. 5, from noon to 6 p.m. for Fall 2017 Pub Crawl.
Sebastien Mehegan / Multimedia Director
KSC psychology major Shannon Dwyer is in charge of setting up Pub Crawl. “[Pub Crawl] is an event for seniors to get together as a class and end the semester to relax and enjoy each others time,” Dwyer said.
Dwyer said Pub Crawl has been going on for around 10 years now and is something some of the seniors look forward to. There is only one problem. The senior class has around 1,230 students according to the KSC Class of 2018 Facebook page. But only about 490 students can participate in the Pub Crawl.
“There are people that are upset because the event is a first-come, first-served deal,” Dwyer said. “Which I totally understand because it is a senior event for the end of the semester.”
Dwyer said she made a schedule of what team will be at each bar and at what time. “Since there are six bars and seven teams, each team will get an hour break,” Dwyer said.
Sebastien Mehegan / Multimedia Director
“[Pub Crawl] also cannot be associated with KSC because the college does not want to promote binge drinking,” Dwyer said.
The owner of Cobblestone Ale House Garrett Plifka said he has owned the bar since March of 2017. “The college kids enjoy [Pub Crawl] and look forward to it,” Plifka said. “The students do a lot for me, so I have to give back,” Plifka said most of his business comes the college kids.
“It can be a little scary being responsible for so many people,” Plifka said the liquor commissioner came around to check for over serving or underage drinking. Bouncers were at the door checking ID’s.
“Legally I can fit 45 inside [the bar] and 16 on the patio,” said Plifka.
Plifka said the reason Cobblestone has a limit of 45 people inside is due to the fact the front door needs to be pulled inward to exit, which is a fire safety issue. Plifka said he is working on fixing the door. Plifka estimated this fix could almost double the inside limit. But he did not know if he would have enough time and money to get it done before Sunday.
Sebastien Mehegan / Multimedia Director
When one of the managers of Twenty One Bar & Grill was asked why Twenty One wouldn’t be participating in Pub Crawl, they said they had no comment.
KSC senior Tyler Croteau participated in the Pub Crawl. “I had a few friends that asked me to join, so I joined the Facebook group for the purple team and luckily we made it into the crawl,” Croteau said. Each team participating in Pub Crawl is represented by a color.
How Pub Crawl works, according to Croteau, is even teams of 70 students rotate from six bars every hour. The bars that participated in the crawl are Lab’n Lager Food & Spirits, Kilkenny Pub, Cobblestone Ale House, Scores Sports Bar & Grill, The Pour House and Penuche’s Ale House.
“A lot of people were upset that the large portion of the class wasn’t able to get onto a team,” Croteau said. “It has got to be hard to coordinate something that big with that many college seniors.”
Croteau said he was excited he got to spend time with his friends and peers. Croteau said, “It was nice to see everyone and just hang out with people I’ve spent the past four years with.”
Matthew Kahlman can be contacted at mkahlman@kscequinox.com
