Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Mayor makes short work of a proposed 'pub crawl'

By Clarence Cromwell

Los Gatos Pub Crawl, a massive bar-hopping event planned by a Los Gatos woman and a local businessman to raise money for cancer research, was swiftly put out the door when the Town Council got wind of the idea.

Scott Held and Jennifer Orme recruited 10 bars for what would have been a noon-to-6 p.m. event on some Saturday afternoon. They expected about 1,000 to 1,500 people to pay $15 for a ticket and a plastic cup that would entitle them to $1 refills at any participating bar.

The proceeds would have gone to the United Cancer Research Society.

Held and Orme thought they didn't need an event permit for the pub crawl. But when Town Council members listened to an answering machine message explaining the event, they left messages to warn the organizers that a permit is indeed required.

"Of course, I about choked," Mayor Randy Attaway recalled.

Held got 15 phone messages, almost at once, from the council and the town staff.

"They were absolutely in hysterics," Held said. "The thing fell apart in one hour."

Orme met with Attaway to convince him that the pub crawl is a worthwhile cause. She convinced him and two other councilmembers to schedule her on the council's Sept. 16 agenda to consider the permit, but she finally called off the event when she realized the council was not going to grant an event permit.

The mayor appeared relieved the following week.

"The name alone is an indicator of an event we don't want to have," Attaway said. "We're not encouraging people to crawl from bar to bar. We have a strict alcohol policy; that's why we have an event policy."

Attaway said the event would re-earn the town the dubious reputation as a "whisky gulch" it has enjoyed from time to time.

Held, who has lost five relatives to cancer, said instead of a pub crawl, his family will help cancer-sufferers by hosting a celebrity golf tournament. But his fundraising days are over; his father probably will be setting up the event.

Held said the event probably wouldn't have been as wild as the Town Council imagines.

"We should have named it something else," he said.