It Was the Gin Talking…

March 3rd, 2005

Las Vegas locals know of CLV Mayor Oscar Goodman’s affinity for the sauce. Unfortunately, a Q&A session with grade school students have left parents, school officials, and the public shaken and stirred (via KLAS-TV):

After reading to the class, one student asked Mayor Goodman if he could take one thing with him on a deserted island, what would it be. The Mayor replied that it would be a bottle of gin. And when a student later asked Mayor Goodman what one of his hobbies was, the Mayor said “drinking.”

Mayor Goodman was invited to read at Mackey Elementary School as part of Nevada Reading Week. Around eighty-five 4th grade students were in the room when Goodman made the comment about drinking.

Parents are just finding out about it and some are upset. “That’s a wrong message to send to kids that if you were on a deserted island, ‘I’m going to bring a bottle of gin.’ That’s something that you can’t say to a child because now if they look up to the Mayor or have aspirations to be a mayor, or whatever the case may be, they’ll remember the Mayor wanted to have a drink,” one parent commented.

The Mayor did not want to comment to Eyewitness News about the matter, but in an earlier interview with the Las Vegas Sun, he was unapologetic and said, “I’m the George Washington of mayors. I can’t tell a lie. If they didn’t want the answer, the kid shouldn’t have asked the question. It’s me, what can it do?”

Surely the Mayor could’ve adjusted his message to make it appropriate for kids. He has other hobbies and interests that doesn’t necessarily require the use of a gin martini.

Update: I originally intended to link to the Las Vegas Sun piece, but their website was still being pegged due to the national interest of the article. Here it is.

Update (3/4): Wizbang gets a mention from the R-J’s Norm Clarke.


Filed under Local News | Comment (1)

One Response to “It Was the Gin Talking…”

  1. Jay on March 3, 2005 March 3, 2005 - 7:53 pm

    I don’t live in Vegas, so you know more about Mayor Goodman than I do D.C. I would say however, he seems pretty “strait forward” to me, which I like.

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