Bus Driver Leaves Las Vegas Seniors Stranded at Eatery

After a trek to Disneyland, 13 Las Vegas senior citizens found themselves on a wild and scary ride Friday with an apparently drunk charter bus driver who left them stranded at a Santa Fe Springs restaurant, authorities said.

The driver, who had not been identified late Friday, made off with the seniors’ baggage and belongings after leaving the frightened group--many of them in their 60s and 70s--at a Bob’s Big Boy near Carmenita Avenue and Interstate 5, officials said.

“They were very, very scared,” said Drake Yoshida, the restaurant’s assistant manager, who called police after the driver showed up with the group.

Late Friday, sheriff’s deputies were searching for the driver and the 15-passenger van, while the seniors, after a four-hour delay, were being driven home in a van provided by the city of Santa Fe Springs.

The seniors had arrived in Anaheim on Thursday on a church-sponsored outing to Disneyland, officials said.

Yoshida said that when the seniors returned to the van for the trip back to Las Vegas after a day at Disneyland on Friday, the passengers said the driver appeared drunk. One woman said she saw a six-pack of beer between the front seats, Yoshida said, and the driver appeared to be lost as he headed northeast on Interstate 5--away from Las Vegas.

When the group stopped at Bob’s Big Boy about 5:30 p.m., Yoshida said the driver “was not very coordinated. I had smelled alcohol on his breath.”

“These people were somewhat frantic,” he said. After talking with one of the seniors, who said the driver had been driving recklessly, Yoshida called police.

The driver then returned to the van, asked the seniors inside to get out and said he was going to get gas, Yoshida said, but never returned.

Lt. Daryl Lance of the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station, said witnesses said the driver “appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or narcotics or both.”

“We’ll try to prosecute the driver, but our first concern today was to get those people home,” he said.

The charter bus company is owned by Las Vegas Promotions, Lance said. No one was available for comment at the firm.

Lance said he contacted city officials, who moved quickly to arrange for another van.

Santa Fe Springs City Manager Dan Powell said: “I felt it was just like my mother or father sitting there. We offered to put them up in a hotel but they said . . . they wanted to get back. So we got a driver and one of our 15-passenger city vans. . . . It will cost us (the city) a little bit of money but it’s worth it.”