They get the tipsy back home

By Jim Radcliffe

SUNSET BEACH – Super Bowl Sunday is such a big party day, the Scooter Patrol had to supplement its usual mode of transportation with two rental vans.
Most nights, Scooter Patrol volunteers drive to bars and put scooters in the car trunks of tipsy bar patrons. They drive the patrons and their vehicles home, and then ride their scooters to their next call. Sunday, the volunteers picked up 40 customers and delivered them to bars, restaurants and private parties – with assurances they would return after the game to get them home.
For free.
For 20 months, Scooter Patrol has worked to keep as many drunken drivers as possible off the streets. Anthony Panzica, 38, founded the service because he believes it is his calling. Local businesses have supported his mission by donating scooters, clothing, a 1995 Saturn and attorney and tax-consultant services.
“I see people not calling cabs,” said Toby Reece, who owns Mahe bar and restaurant in Seal Beach. “It’s, ‘I don’t want to leave my car here.’ When I tell them about Anthony, they jump at it.
“They are skeptical at first. ‘What do you mean he’s going to put a scooter in my car?’.”
Reece said. “If I’ve had a beer or two, I call Anthony. ‘Take me home safe.’ He’s got a great thing going.”
Scooter Patrol drivers accept tips, and Panzica says he lives off the $6,000 a year he receives. Tips have ranged from $1 and a used, beat-up cassette to $200.
Besides Panzica, four other volunteers shuttle home motorists who have had too much to drink.
One volunteer is Jason Bongiovanni, 23, a pre-med major in his junior year at UCLA who lives in Huntington Harbour. He earns about $100 in a seven-hour shift and describes the work as meaningful.
“They are always very thankful,” Bongiovanni said. “On the whole, most of them are pretty intoxicated.”
The volunteers, he said, are saving lives.
As the big game ended, Panzica’s phone started ringing and ringing. He tossed his scooter into the back of a white truck at a sushi bar in Sunset Beach and drove two women home. Then it was a pickup at a Seal Beach restaurant – with many more to follow before he parked his scooter for the night.