Annual Silly Event Takes Place At Mug’s Away In Laguna Niguel, CA
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Nightlife Blogger
The heck with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and stuffy Laguna Niguel city officials.
Let’s make the Mooning of the Amtrack fun again! It is annually held the second Saturday of July in Southern California along the Amtrak and Orange County Metrolink tracks as it passes by the Mug’s Away Saloon.
A few years ago, with a new sheriff in town (the previous one has been convicted of a felony, by the way, though he is still scheduled to collect his $200,000+ annual pension) a panic button was pushed and everyone wearing suits and badges overreacted as if responding to a terrorist alert. There were more cops than at a football game.
And why? Because a few people gather once a year at a dive bar in a business park strip mall in a remote area of Orange County to rush up against a fence and drop their pants to passengers on the passing trains. Held in Laguna Niguel, CA, the event became to be known as the Mooning of the Amtrak, and it was a regular stop for fun-loving people in and around the OC.
Such creativity should be rewarded – as it was for several years – not punished. And the event has yet to get back its original luster. Let’s get it back to its former glory.
True, this unofficial event had grown into a pretty decent gathering, a couple of hundred people throughout the day and night, complete with a couple of concession tents and motorhomes parked along the side of the street as if at a NASCAR race.
There was a small line to get into the down-and-dirty bar to sweat it out with other “mooners” while bikini-clad bartenders happily served them beers.
Somehow, this was seen as bad, as something that required the full attention of the City Council and Orange County Sheriff’s Department. (And, no doubt, at considerable cost to taxpayers.)
They turned from protecting and serving to no-fun bullies, like when an usher at a Dodger game takes a beach ball away from fans (well, back in the good ‘ol days when people tossed beach balls in the stands at Dodger Stadium). In 2010, there were more cops than mooners and the event was, well, a non event.
Which is why the Bar Blogger says let’s take charge of it again! Go out, have a few brews at the Mug’s Away Saloon and moon the passing Amtrak trains. If there are tons of cops there, well, wave at them and go about your task of having good, simple and harmless fun. That’s what the event has always been anyway, and it can be that way again.
Cheers!
Related Link:
• Mooning of the Amtrack Information, Review & Photos
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