Okay so we all know how fun a night out with the lads (or girls) can be. In the UK we bar hop and can easily plough down ten drinks in a night plus a few shots thrown in for good measure. The next day’s hangover is a badge of honor and a reminder of a good night out.
In LA? Not so much…
For those newbies to LA, the first thing I’m gonna point out is that most bars in LA offer a free pour (no pre-measured shots here) in a very large glass. And Weho (that area referred to as “boystown” which runs the stretch of Santa Monica Blvd between Fairfax and Robertson) is no exception. In fact a fun night out can turn fatal.
Many a night I’ve been there with friends only to wake up the next day, half clothed, on the couch, not remembering how the hell I got home with my Uber rating considerably downgraded, bleary-eyed while calling my friends to help me fill in the blanks.
“Last thing I remember was (fill in inappropriate activity here), usually followed by a variant of: “dude, I’ve no idea, we surely didn’t drink that much.”
Last Wednesday was another random spur-of-the-moment night, as a few of us went bar hopping and I woke up Thursday with my newly purchased Barney’s Bum Bag (fanny pack to you Yanks) missing. All my money, credit cards, keys – gone. Trying to get hold of the bar seemed impossible. (“Press 3 for lost and found” – followed by a full mailbox). Before cancelling every card I thought I’d check with the bar in person. To my surprise my bag was there with everything still in it. Talk about lucky. Apparently I’d left it on the bar and walked off. But back to the point — we only had a few cocktails and we all blacked out. How is this possible? For years I’d put it down to the fact that nothing ever good can happen by stepping into Weho. But the reality is that as we age the harder it is for our bodies to process the effects of alcohol.
A friend of mine recently recounted a similar story on social media – but with a far more devastating outcome. Here is a snippet: “I feel obligated to tell you all what happened to me on Saturday night/Sunday morning while out with friends in West Hollywood because something very similar happened to a friend of mine a few weeks back that it can’t just be a coincidence. I tell this story in hopes this doesn’t happen to you.
We had all gone to a birthday party and decided to go to The Chapel (a popular bar on Robertson Blvd) for a nightcap. Slowly people started going home until it was just me and two other friends. I remember having a conversation with them but as if in mid sentence my brain cuts to me waking up on Sunday morning in an unknown Prius on my street but two blocks to the south. As you can imagine, I was very disoriented and took me a good five minutes before I could assess even what neighborhood I was in. My wallet, phone, glasses and shoes had been taken off of me. The only thing left in my pocket were my house keys.
My debit card shows that I had two charges at The Chapel and my friends said I was talking to a drag queen for whom I purchased a drink but she had left by the time they took their leave. I then have an $8 debit charge at Motherlode (another nearby bar) but I have no recollection of ever entering that bar. My brain goes from talking to my friends at Chapel and then waking up in the strange car.
It’s the memory lapse that is making me most upset. What went on between 1am-2am on Sunday morning? How did I end up in that car? Did the robbers put me in the vehicle? Was I running away from someone and found an unlocked car to hide out in and passed out? I don’t have those answers but did end up talking to the owner of the vehicle today.
So – I’m left with a mystery of possibly being drugged/roofied or at the very least taken advantage of in a drunken state, robbed and left with only my clothes and my keys in my pocket.
I should thank my lucky stars that it wasn’t worse. It definitely could have been much much worse.
But something very similar happened to a friend recently so I can’t help thinking this isn’t a coincidence. Does this happen a lot of people who frequent WEHO? Is it the bartender over-pouring? Are we all being roofied? Or just getting old?
What ever the answer is, I’ll never know but I share this embarrassing story so we all can learn to monitor our drinks, don’t leave them unattended, space out the drinks, perhaps with a few waters in between and remember that one big drink here is probably the equivalent of a triple back home. Also: stay with your friends and look after each other!
Cheers! (seems a little inappropriate for this story, but Sober! doesn’t have the same ring to it)
Craig Young
