Charter Bus Requirement for All Events w/Alcohol?
 

Our school in the last few years has imposed a requirement that charter buses be used to transport guests to and from events where alcohol is going to be present (many other requirements exist here too).

Do your universities impose this requirement? What are some pros and cons? Has anyone been able to find a compromise with their school as to the need for this additional expense?

TCU has been doing this since at least the late 1980s. No one really thinks twice about it. Everyone gets to/from the parties safely.

Some chapters use charter busses (with bathrooms), while others save on expense by using the local public school busses. You or your date puke on the bus? There is hell to pay.

It's been written into budgets for so long that no one thinks twice about it.

My alma mater did this. 95% of the time, unless it was for a more formal date party on the sorority side and even then only occasionally, we used school buses and not nicer air conditioned/cushioned buses. In my opinion, it's not something worth fighting. It was great. To my knowledge, in my greek community which easily consisted of 2,000+ individuals, there was never a DUI arrest/injury/death (or even drunk driving that wasn't caught, at least to my knowledge) on drunk driving. It is incredibly safe and really was not a huge expense.

For a 35-60 person roster, with a chapter plant which sleeps 3, the expense is significant.

All events? Or just events that are not within walking distance?

Any event where alcohol will be served. Which I have no issue with except for events which are hosted by a hotel, where all of the guests will also be staying the night.

Our chapter of 20-30 has been required to since the early 1990s- as others have said, it just gets worked into the budget.

**coming from a Canadian whosee chapters are getting crushed financially from the exchange rate**

Not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but if buses are required for an event with alcohol, and cost is an issue for your chapter, then does an event have to be at a hotel? Do guests have to spend the night? From a cost issue, if an event is at a cheaper venue or if at a hotel the guests don't spend the night would that free up more money to make the buses more affordable?

If the bus issue is not something your chapter is able to get around, then maybe a change in where the chapter has an event or how the event is planned (not an overnight event) is something that needs to be considered.

We have to do this for formals. The local school buses won't do it anymore for any of the groups on our campus, and the charter bus expense has risen dramatically. This put a significant dent in the chapter budget, but it is much safer.

Can you get a minivan? Perhaps some enterprising locals could put a fleet of them together.

As far as not having a formal in a hotel - there aren't many other places to have them in smaller towns. Plus even if you did have it at a large restaurant or something, the idea of being on a scungy bus in a formal dress and full rig is just eewwwww.

We take a bus to all of our events. No matter how close or how far. There was only 1 venue that was quite literally 5 feet off campus that we ever walked to. It's a risk management thing, makes it safer. Plus, being on a campus that's in a major city, it was also convenient. But we didn't take charter buses. Just regular ones. For out-of-town fraternity formals there were charter buses. Or you could drive.