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Published on 07/14/1999 All articles from this issue

Visitors flock to arts & wine festival despite heat, World Cup

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

The threat of record weekend heat didn't slow down Diane Lazear. This 41-year-old Mountain View resident has come to the Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival every year since it began 20 years ago, and this year was no exception.

"It's one of the best," she said.

By 11 a.m. on Saturday, just an hour after the festival had opened, Lazear already had several purchases.

She was getting a jump-start on her Christmas shopping, she said. She'd bought a 3- by 5-inch hand-crafted wooden picture frame and dried flowers in a heart basket for the front door of her new townhome.

Her friend, Barbara Woolley, 50, of Cupertino, has come "almost every year. It's my favorite festival. I come and look for art and find lots of goodies," Woolley said. She showed off a birdhouse she'd bought, "because it's country and rustic."

Lazear and Woolley were just two of the thousands of festival goers who poured into Los Altos at the opening of the two-day event on Saturday.

The overall Saturday crowd was smaller than previous years, "a lot smaller than anybody expected," said Sgt. Tom Connelly of the Los Altos Police Department. The World Cup women's soccer championship between the United States and China, won by the U.S., also was on Saturday.

Melissa Johnson, 23, a first-time craftsperson at the festival, said business was good at her Wax 'n' Wix candle booth. She expected a "phenomenal" weekend, she said. "I'd heard many great things about the Los Altos festival, and that's why we're here."

Around the corner at Robert Steiner's booth, filled with his prints of ducks, the artist chatted with some of his longtime followers.

Los Altos Hills residents Jane and Bill Scharflen said Steiner's prints cover a wall in their family room. Bill, who is retired, goes duck hunting and fishing, she said.

In spite of the heat, by noon on Saturday, the two emergency medical technicians on duty had had a quiet morning.

"Only one call," they said. While an 8-month-old was getting a lock of hair snipped at a child-identification booth, his ear was cut instead. "The parents were scared and brought him to the first-aid booth," said Kathy Miller, one of the EMTs.

So far there had not been any heat-related incidents.

"People have their hats on, they're all drinking water and juice," said Trish Rhodes, the second EMT. "On a day like today, it's hydrate and cover yourself and everyone's doing that," she said.

There was only one complaint from some festival-goers: parking. "If parking wasn't such an aggravation, we'd enjoy it more," said Georgette Walsh, 59, of San Jose.

Even with the parking challenges, they come every year. "We always see something we need, with the uniqueness of the things," Georgette said.

Police said that between Saturday and Sunday, one vendor reported a theft of some jewelry and another reported a booth vandalized, said Sgt. Mark Macaulay.

"This is the first year anything like that has been reported," Macaulay said.

Police made four arrests for public drunkenness, one Friday night and three on Saturday night who said they had been drinking at the festival, Macaulay said.