Rose Bowl Ticket Sale Becomes Thorny

Football fans hoping to get a chance at 500 Rose Bowl tickets were turned away minutes after arriving at the Civic Center Auditorium box office in Pasadena on Saturday morning.

The tickets had been made available exclusively to Pasadena residents, who were told to line up at 8:30 a.m., but dozens of disappointed residents said they found more than a hundred people already in line wearing wristbands to buy tickets.

“I was here at 8 a.m. thinking I had plenty of time, and now the guy tells me he had instructions to pass them out at 7 a.m.,” Joanne Stickle said. “Well I’m like, ‘Great. What about the rest of us?’ ”

No one could be reached for comment at the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Assn.

To be held New Year’s Day, the 84th annual Rose Bowl game is sold out by contract, with most of its 100,000 tickets reserved for the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences.

Recent statements to the news media and a phone message at the office of the Tournament of Roses Assn. had said some tickets would be sold exclusively to Pasadena residents Dec. 6. Ticket buyers could begin lining up at 8:30 a.m., with tickets to be sold at 10 a.m. No mention was made about camping out overnight or wristbands.

The Dec. 6 sale in Pasadena would be followed by the sale of 1,000 tickets nationally Dec. 8, the message said.