Drive-Home Service for Bar Patrons in Jeopardy : Drunk driving: PUC says operator must be licensed, but he says requirements will put him out of business.

Life’s the pits these days for Charles Plunkett.

Not because he spends his nights barhopping while a procession of intoxicated people climb in and out of his car. Not hardly.

He’s dejected because state officials have told him to knock it off.

Plunkett operates Persons Intoxicated Transport Service--PITS for short. It is a one-man operation that in the last three years has given hundreds of rides home to San Gabriel Valley tavern patrons too wary or too wobbly to drive themselves.

It’s a nonprofit service: Plunkett asks for a $5 donation from each of his passengers. That money helps cover the cost of gasoline and the beeper that bartenders in five cities use to call him. He says those who do not want to pay ride free.

But the state’s Public Utilities Commission has ordered him to stop until he gets a $500 PUC permit, puts registration numbers on the sides of the 1984 Ford that he drives from bar to bar, and secures at least $750,000 in commercial-type insurance coverage.

Doing all of that will pull the plug on PITS, contends Plunkett, 39, of Duarte.

Sorry, says the PUC. The public has to be protected. Even the drinking public.

Plunkett, who works as a security guard at the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, said he launched his shoestring operation in 1989 to help prevent drunk driving.

“I’d see a lot of it at night when I was working. On Friday and Saturday nights, especially, people get ‘high-spirited’--I don’t like to use the word drunk because it doesn’t sound too good,” he said.

“I wanted to do something good for the community. I thought PITS would be a good service.”

Before starting, Plunkett took out $318 worth of annual business licenses from Azusa, Alhambra, San Gabriel, Arcadia and Duarte, the cities he intended to serve. He printed simple liability waivers for passengers to sign (witnessed by bartenders) to protect himself.

He outfitted his auto with reflective signs and decals that depict images of car keys, whiskey bottles and highball glasses. He designed a red-shirted uniform. “I wanted to make sure people knew what kind of car they were getting into,” he explained.

A count of the signed releases that Plunkett has saved at his home shows that more than 225 of his “high-spirited” passengers have climbed into his car since then. He picks up between seven and 10 riders most Friday and Saturday nights. Many are repeat customers.

“It’s a very good service. It’s an opportunity to get home safely,” said Robert Zwalve, a retired Air Force sergeant who frequents the Keg & Cork tavern in Duarte and has twice received lifts from Plunkett.

Bob Roe, a Duarte electrician, said PITS has helped him home about four times.

“I won’t drive myself if I’m out celebrating,” Roe explained, interrupting a game of darts at the Catamaran bar. “I work construction and my livelihood depends on me having a driver’s license.”

The case of PUC vs. PITS involves a different type of license.

Plunkett must have “operating authority” from the Public Utilities Commission if he accepts donations from his passengers, said Eileen Johnson, a Los Angeles-based investigator for the commission.

“If any money is exchanged, it’s considered for-hire transportation,” she said. “Usually people are not out doing a service like this out of the goodness of their heart.”

Although PITS is hardly Greyhound Bus Lines, the PUC would require professional safety inspections of Plunkett’s 8-year-old Ford and special liability insurance, she said.

“We’re going to look carefully at any company in business for hire. We regulate big guys and little guys, too. The purpose of this is to protect the public.”

Those sipping Budweisers along Duarte’s Huntington Drive found that hard to swallow.

“What do they want? To put drinking drivers back on the road?” asked an incredulous Bob Kingan, an aerospace manager from Azusa who was visiting the Keg & Cork.

“He’s doing a good community service. Politics shouldn’t take over and put him out of business. He’s doing a good job for the public.”

Plunkett can be called to give rides to tipsy patrons any night of the week, said Connie Sullivan, a bartender at the VFW hall down the street. “It would be a big mistake to close him.”

Said Ella Borin, a bartender at the Stratford Arms Pub: “You’re safe with him--he never drinks anything but orange juice. They don’t want people drinking and driving . . . so it would be ridiculous to shut him down.”

At the Cataraman, Wilma Furey shook her head. “The PUC should cut him some slack,” she said.

Keg & Cork manager Edna Hanlon said operators of bars and lounges in the area may join to stage a fund-raiser to cover PITS’ PUC expenses.

Those costs could be steep, however. Besides the $500 permit filing fee, commercial insurance coverage could cost as much as $8,000 a year, according to estimates Plunkett says he has received. He said he has been unable to find sponsorship from such organizations as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Iris Hakala, administrative assistant at MADD’s Los Angeles County chapter, confirmed that her group, whose main function is victim assistance, is unable to participate. “What he’s doing is a way of saving lives. But we don’t deal with the drunk driver in any way,” she said.

The PUC, meanwhile, has warned Plunkett that he faces a $1,000 fine and three months in jail if he continues his unauthorized bar pickups.

Plunkett said he does not want to quit. But he doesn’t want to go to jail, either.

It’s a dilemma that’s almost enough to drive a man to drink.