SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Festival Slackers Sent to Hoosegow

Until Friday, Manh Che had never been behind bars.

But Friday morning, a posse of sorts barged into a Carl’s Jr. where Che is manager and hauled him off.

Che was busted, jailed and forced to pay bail--all of $1. And all in the name of fun and tradition.

“I’m still not sure what happened,” Che, 25, a Laguna Niguel resident, said after being released.

Che was an unknowing participant in Hoosegow Day, the day before the Swallows Day parade, when anyone in San Juan Capistrano spotted with a cleanshaven face or without Western garb can be taken to jail.

Under direction of the Fiesta Assn., the group that puts together the annual Fiesta de las Golondrinas, two posses take to the streets in search of unsuspecting locals.

One posse is stationed outside the Swallows Inn, using a jail set up alongside Camino Capistrano. The other posse roams the streets with a portable jail.

Anyone caught without the appropriate duds or facial hair winds up in jail. A button labeled Smooth Puss or a garter, either purchased for $1, will buy freedom.

The bail money will be used to help put on next year’s Swallows Day events, said Mike Rosenberger, a deputized member of the posse.

After rounding up Che and others in the restaurant’s parking lot, the posse moved to a nearby Ralphs market and booked about eight employees.

“The store’s running on automatic pilot,” Ralphs employee Joe Incando of San Clemente said from behind bars.

The Hoosegow Day tradition dates back to when Judge Richard Egan, a county sheriff and supervisor who arrived in San Juan Capistrano in 1868, ran the town out of his home on Camino Capistrano. The jail, then in his back yard, was the original hoosegow and still stands in the Los Rios district of town.

The Fiesta de las Golondrinas will wrap up today. The Swallows Parade through town will start about 11 a.m.