As some underage students may have already learned the hard way, one less music venue in Athens is open to them on the weekends.

Beginning in mid-August with the start of the school year, Tasty World became a 21-and-older venue on Fridays and Saturdays.

The change may disappoint some of Athens’ younger music fans, but Murphy Wolford, the owner of Tasty World, said he had his reasons.

“Volume and management of people on the weekends,” Wolford said. “We discovered that it was a lot more peaceful for us to control the crowd if we limit it to 21 and over.”

The change in policy was made for practical reasons, he said, and will hopefully make it easier for staff to prevent underage drinking.

“We were trying to reduce the number of people we need to staff. Staff is already up, and to go 18 and up, we have to have two or three more people here to watch the crowd,” Wolford said. “And on the weekends, that just became unmanageable, money-wise.[We're] not trying to lower attendance, just trying to not have to watch over the crowd and see who might be cheating.”

The new policy applies only to shows on Friday and Saturday nights. Audiences between the ages of 18 and 20 can still attend shows on Monday through Thursday nights. The downstairs bar is limited to ages 21 and over at all times.

Still, the move has disappointed some, Wolford said.

“Some people have e-mailed and they’ve been a little bit disappointed, because most of our best shows are on the weekends,” he said. “We’ve been 18 and up for a long time.”

But he said there were usually very few people under 21 at the shows.

“We were looking at numbers all summer long, and the amount of under-21 people who were coming to shows – you’d be very surprised. It was only 10 to 15 percent of the audience,” he said. “For years I didn’t pay attention to it very strictly, and then we started looking at it, and we were like, ‘What are we doing?’ We’ve got 200 people up here and we’re having to stamp everybody’s hands, yes or no. It just became something we didn’t want to do for the 10 or 20 people that were coming.”

Students’ reactions to the new policy varied.

“The last time I went there was six months ago for Against Me! and there were actually a lot of young people there, so that’s surprising,” said Jessie Dibrell, a sophomore biochemistry major from Savannah. “I didn’t really think it was much of a bar-type atmosphere, more of a venue, so I would think it would hurt their business. I don’t think there was that much drinking.”

Diana Young, a junior from Nashville majoring in broadcasting, works at a bar, and said she understood the reasoning behind Tasty World’s move.

“I’m a bartender at the Library, and it’s an 18-up club,” she said. “Honestly, as much as it’s a pain for people who are under 21 to go out and have a good time, it’s difficult to be an 18-up club because of the alcohol that circulates.”

She suggested that Tasty World have shows before a certain time that were open to all ages.

Adam Evancho, a junior advertising major from Dacula, admitted he had never been to Tasty World, but saw some problems with the change.

“I wonder, first off, why is it they’re raising their age?” he said. “I’ve never been there, but if it’s a really cool place, I imagine [people] would be upset about it because most places downtown are already closed off to that age. When you close off the age from 18 to 21, that’s the bulk of the people who go to UGA…It’s really shutting down the bulk of students from going and seeing good shows on weekends.”

He also said that some artists might prefer playing to a younger crowd.

“Some rock bands, especially, appeal mostly to a young audience,” Evancho said. “If all that’s there is 25 to 30-year-old dudes. I can’t imagine it would make the bands happy.”