West Virginia University campus police seized 517 T-shirts and more than $1,000 in cash from three unauthorized vendors selling merchandise near Milan Puskar Stadium Saturday during the WVU -East Carolina football game.
Vendors are not permitted to sell items without a legal business registration,said WVU Chief of Staff Craig Walker.President Garrison has instructed me, the campus police and his legal staff to take any steps we can to make sure that no one takes advantage of our hospitality to operate illegal businesses around campus.
The three vendors, all from the Cleveland area, were in possession of shirts that included unauthorized uses of WVU trademarks and symbols. Included in the seizure were 231 shirts which contained a profane epithet within the name of the state.
The WVU trademark office will not license shirts or other items that contain profane or offensive statements or images, and would never have approved these shirts for sale,Walker said.Our Department of Public Safety checks the area around the stadium at each game for unlicensed vendors and shuts down these sales as soon as they are spotted.
WVU is considering further legal action against the vendors and the manufacturers of the shirts. The sale of WVU -authorized merchandise provides the University with substantial revenue to help support scholarship programs, and unsanctioned merchandise endangers those sales.
We do not want them back here,Walker said.
The confiscated shirts are being held as evidence.