Cary family fumes over prom limo fiasco

What was supposed to be a special prom night turned into a fiasco for a group of students from Cary High School, who were twice stranded by their limousine driver.

Posted 11:11 p.m. Jun 1, 2016 — Updated 11:51 p.m. Jun 1, 2016

CARY, N.C. — What was supposed to be a special prom night turned into a fiasco for a group of students from Cary High School, who were twice stranded by their limousine driver.

The students' parents splurged for a limousine from Lovely Limo to take the teens to the prom on May 21, but parent Carrie Nicholas was taken aback when driver Reginald Clark pulled up and bragged about the fully stocked bar in the back of the vehicle.

"I said, 'Well, these (kids) are 18, 19 and my oldest is 20, so none of them can drink,'" Nicholas said.

Clark "backpedaled a little bit," she said, to explain that he knew what was in the bar and would know if anyone had been drinking.

Nicholas' son, Andrew Hartman, a Cary High junior, said that explanation didn't jibe with Clark's attitude.

"He was like, 'All right, we can get this party going. We got the liquor,'" Hartman said.

Nicholas said she trusts her sons, so she let them stay in the limo.

Clark dropped the group at a restaurant for dinner, but Hartman said they had to wait an hour for him to pick them up.

"We called him, and he didn’t show up until like 8:45, so we were already a little frustrated," he said.

What happened next stunned Nicholas more than the stocked bar comment.

Clark took the students back to her house to clean up before heading to the dance, and he decided to relieve himself outside.

"He says, 'Do you have any wipes?' He said, 'I’m just going to go pee on the side of the house. I can’t wait," Nicholas said.

"Afterwards, I’m like, 'Why did I do that?'" she said. "If I would have been thinking straight, I probably would have just said, 'OK, we’re done for the night.'"

Once the students made it to the dance, they again were left waiting for an hour before Clark returned to pick them up.

"When he got there to get them, he was cleaning red Solo cups out of the back of the car," Nicholas said.

Clark, who said he's owned his limousine business for two years and has never before had a complaint, admitted he was double-booked for that Saturday night and that the stocked bar was intended for the other group.

He offered to refund $67, but Nicholas said the family hasn't gotten any money back.

"I just wanted them to have a good time, and instead, it ended up being a big fiasco," she said. "I just don’t want anybody else who has kids 17, 18, 19 years old to hire this guy because I don’t want them put in the same position."

Suggest A Correction