R&R Golf Cars closes shop, employees and customers seek answers

Chris Sharp, of Indio, got the news on Wednesday that he along with more than 20 employees at the 3-year-old business R&R Golf Cars in Rancho Mirage were being laid off.

“The owner came up and said we’re closing the doors. We went bankrupt. We’re done,” said Sharp.

Sharp tells us the business closed shop only a week after he was promoted from delivery to parts manager.

“There’s a lot of pissed off customers and a lot of angry employees. They have no communication. Everyone’s confused on about what’s going on out here,” said Sharp.

Many of them showed up on Thursday in search of answers from the owner Rory Royston, 23. They also involved the sheriff’s department while they could only watch as inventory was loaded up and towed away to be locked down in storage.

“They had trucks lined up. You couldn’t even drive in here last night. You couldn’t drive in here this morning. They were loading up the golf carts,” said Christian Reyes, an employee at neighboring business Patios Plus.

A sign posted on the door reads that the business is closing and “current customers will recieve a call next week.”

“They were angry. They wanted to know where their stuff was. They have people’s golf carts that they paid for. And they rightfully should get some answers and they don’t have that,” said Reyes.

We called Royston. He says he laid off nearly two dozen employees at his Rancho Mirage show room and Palm Desert service department, admitting that his business went under and he’s filing for bankruptcy.

It was a shock to some, however others felt it coming.

“I’ve been calling it that they were going out of business just because you couldn’t order parts for weeks,” said Geoffrey Benedetto, a former employee.

“He tried to grow too fast. He’s a young owner, he’s really young. He’s 23 years old and he owns a multi-million dollar company. I just think he wanted to grow faster than he was able to do and kind of lost track of things,” said Sharp.

Royston tells us he’s working to “restructure so everyone gets paid.”

Meanwhile, customers and vendors say they want their carts and their money.

“I hope that Rory does the right things and all the customers out here are happy and get taken care of and they don’t have to deal with losing 10s of thousands of dollars,” said Sharp.

Employee Jarvin Aivaz says he will personally help Royston deliver the carts without pay to their rightful owners on Friday.

Royston tells us he did the best he could as a young business owner, but unfortunately failed and hopes to bounce back.