Downtown turns into wild night for Mardi Gras--without permit
Bar, restaurant owners say it was not an 'event'
Police dept. begs to differ
By Gloria I. Wang
Hundreds of people came to downtown Los Gatos for a Mardi Gras celebration, which was deemed a success by the bars and restaurants involved.
Problem is, nobody notified town officials or the police department about the Feb. 12 event.
Now, those businesses face fines or harsher penalties because they allegedly failed to comply with town codes and, police say, should have obtained a special events permit.
The businesses, however, say the celebration was not a special event and, therefore, did not need a town-issued permit.
According to police, the celebration, which went late into the night, drew a crowd of thousands, had insufficient enforcement, and caused disturbances and neighborhood complaints.
The event was advertised in alternative publications Metro and The Wave as the "1st Annual Fat Cat Walk" in downtown Los Gatos. According to the ad, the event included free Mardi Gras beads, live music and dancing, food and drink specials and souvenir hurricane glasses--under the sponsorship of liquor company Southern Comfort. The ad also listed the names of the participating venues: Chart House, No. 1 Broadway, Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza, Mountain Charley's Saloon, Carry Nation's, The Black Watch, Double D's Sports Grille, C.B. Hannegan's, Los Gatos Bar & Grill and the Los Gatos Brewing Company.
Each of the 10 establishments involved offered drink discounts and some had special Cajun menus. The Mardi Gras-themed drink of the day--the Hurricane, consisting of Southern Comfort whiskey and juices--was sold in special event cups for $5. The plastic cups could then be taken to other businesses and refilled with the Hurricane for $4.
Mark Achilli, co-owner of Mountain Charley's Saloon, says he first conceived of the idea in January. Achilli said he wanted to make Los Gatos more of a "destination spot" and decided to place a joint advertisement with other downtown business. The concept was not a new one, according to Achilli, who said a group of businesses had advertised together for past holidays such as Halloween and New Year's Eve. "We just figured that Fat Tuesday was a natural," Achilli said.
Typically, business is slow for downtown bars and restaurants on Tuesdays, and Achilli brainstormed ways to entice customers on Fat Tuesday. The 10 establishments met several times to agree on the common theme of serving the Hurricane and discussed specials. Achilli says he then contacted various liquor suppliers and wholesalers, and Southern Comfort was interested in taking part in the event because of the company's origins in New Orleans.
Southern Comfort merely provided the beads, but the group of establishments had to pay for the cups and alcohol because liquor companies are prohibited by law from providing materials of monetary value, Achilli said.
The businesses split all the expenses, including the advertisements, evenly. "It was not an event; it was a joint advertisement," Achilli said.
C.B. Hannegan's bar manager, Shawn Carroll, says the intent was to coordinate all the parties thrown by the individual businesses. Placing a joint advertisement would make for cheaper advertising rates, Carroll said. "Each place was going to do something, so why not advertise as a group?" Carroll said. Hannegan's served a Cajun all-you-can-eat buffet.
"This was kind of uncharted territory for everybody," said Dean Devincenzi, co-owner of Double D's Sports Grille, adding that the businesses had no idea what to expect, since it was the first time downtown had celebrated Fat Tuesday.
Double D's hoped that its Cajun catfish, Creole prawns and beer deals would bring new customers in, but management was unprepared for the crowd that came. Business was double what it usually is on a Tuesday night. "There's no way to predict that it would've been this big," Devincenzi said.
"It came out terrific," said Mike Downing, bar manager for Carry Nation's. "It couldn't have been more perfect." According to Downing, the crowd was good and did not cause any trouble.
Downing said Carry Nation's went through 14 bottles of Southern Comfort that night, and the bar was so full that the couches inside had to be moved out. There was a "New Orleans Mardi Gras festival atmosphere," Downing said.
"In 25 years of bartending, I've never poured more than [that night]," Downing said.
Along with the food and drink specials, the Los Gatos Wildcat Marching Band provided entertainment to almost all of the restaurants. Band director Jim Francisco said 20 members of the band, dressed in their uniform jackets, beads and Mardi Gras hats, played a 15-minute set inside and outside some of the restaurants. "The kids had a great time and so did I," Francisco said.
Hannegan's owner Johnny Hannegan had proposed the performances as a fundraiser for the band's upcoming trip to Dublin. Because the band was not accepting money that evening, Hannegan collected customer and business donations the next day.
Carroll said Hannegan's took extra precautions to comply with police regulations. Hannegan's placed extra doormen and extra garbage cans at the exits of the restaurant, and patrons were told that they could not take alcohol onto the street. Other businesses, such as Mountain Charley's, gave people new, clean cups when they left so they would not take even a drop of alcohol with them.
The Los Gatos Bar and Grill closed its doors before 11 p.m. before it was too crowded and management sensed that the crowd was becoming too unruly, said marketing manager Billy Ayer. The downtown San Jose Mardi Gras celebration had been shut down by police because of rioting, and Ayer said perhaps some of those revelers had come to Los Gatos.
Similarly, Devincenzi said he wants the event to go on next year, but knows there are some kinks to work out. The celebration was "amateur night," Devincenzi said, because it was the first time it had been done, but some his concerns, as well as the town's, would need to be addressed.
Santa Clara County Fire Capt. Tom Tornell notified the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department about the celebration when the fire department saw the ad in The Wave. "These kind of events always cause concerns for public safety," Tornell said.
Tornell called Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Sgt. Dave Gravel on Feb. 11 to ask about enforcement of the party. Gravel said, "My obvious response was, 'What Mardi Gras?'" Gravel spent the next day going to all the businesses, to put them on notice that they were violating a town ordinance and to tell them that there would be extra enforcement and zero tolerance.
Because it was so last-minute, however, the police department was unable to sufficiently staff the event. Gravel said seven officers were on duty for all of Los Gatos, not just downtown, until 10 p.m., and then five more between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Police officers estimated that there were already 500 people just in the 100 block of N. Santa Cruz Avenue by 9 p.m. More people showed up later in the evening, however, and went to establishments all along N. Santa Cruz; many were so crowded that lines drifted on the sidewalks and onto the street. The party was over by 2:15 a.m.
While the celebration was going on, officers concentrated on keeping the streets clear, but managed to break up a few fights between intoxicated people and responded to noise complaints from neighbors. In addition, some policemen had to escort women who were mobbed when they went topless. "Some women were willing to show their breasts to get some beads," Gravel said, adding that some people had carried over the New Orleans tradition of stripping to earn beads.
Gravel said the celebration "absolutely" required a special events permit. First, Gravel said the evening was very obviously an event because of the "common theme" and not merely a joint advertisement, as Achilli had said. Gravel said, "It's one thing to have special drinks and it's another thing to have a massive drinking party, and that to me is the difference."
"This event here would put the message out to come to Los Gatos for an all-out drinking party," Gravel said. "We are not New Orleans and we don't want to be."
In addition, town code states that the definition of a special event is an event that takes place on a town street and may "generate a crowd of sufficient size likely to obstruct, delay or interfere with the normal flow of vehicular traffic" and "requires police regulation ... to maintain public safety."
The Mardi Gras event fulfilled those requirements, Gravel said, because people were spilling onto the streets and all the officers worked on controlling the crowd. "We needed everything we had and probably could have used more," Gravel said.
Los Gatos Bar and Grill's Ayer said, "We never intended it to be a street party. We wanted people to come and enjoy our atmosphere." Any violation of town codes, Ayer said, was unintentional.
"We certainly weren't out to upset anyone," Achilli said, "and we certainly didn't think we were doing anything wrong."
Achilli also said there were no plans to hold a street party or to hinder traffic. "We know that the town would certainly frown against that," Achilli said.
Town code also specifies that the special events permit would need to be obtained before any promotion could be done. The Los Gatos bars and restaurants violated that code by placing the ads in different publications prematurely, Gravel said.
On Thursday, Los Gatos police officers issued citations for every business that participated for violation of the special events ordinance that requires a permit for special events. In addition, Los Gatos Bar and Grill and Willow Street received citations for violation of the town's sign ordinance.
Not only was the special event ordinance violated, the businesses needed approval from the planning department in order to display banners; the establishments had put up signs advertising the Hurricane but were ordered to take them down.
Although the maximum monetary penalty of those violations is $100, Gravel said, the businesses could face a revocation of their town-issued conditional-use permits, if the planning department decides that any of them had violated those conditions. That could lead to the town taking away the establishment's liquor license.
But Gravel predicts the businesses will comply with penalties and enforcement measures. The restaurants and bars involved, Gravel said, are eager to maintain good reputations in town.
"I think more than anything ... will hopefully send a message to the bars that if they want to organize something collectively, they need a special events permit," Gravel said. "Hopefully they'll go through the appropriate channels next time."
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
