For Palmer Lake bar patrons, this bus is for you

PALMER LAKE • It's 1 a.m., time for Jeff Hulsmann to make his first run driving home the drunks.

"Get on the bus," he tells revelers slumped on bar stools and dancing in the aisles.

A few stagger behind him. Most hold out until the 2 a.m. ride.

You might say this bar owner is just protecting his investment. Not only the bar, but the patrons and 2,300 residents in this remote town about 20 miles away from the nearest taxi service in Colorado Springs.

Hulsmann, owner of O'Malley's Steak Pub, gives free rides to imbibers after a night of too many shots and karaoke.

He has delivered more than 1,000 riders in the seven months since he bought the 15-passenger bus that in a former life toted senior citizens.

That's 1,000 drunks off the streets.

"After my third beer, I locked up my truck. I'm not going anywhere except the bus," Alison Updike said last Saturday after ordering a shot with beer No. 5.

"Before the bus, how many millions of times did we try to sneak our way home?" said regular Eddie Jones.

Some got caught.

"We had a couple customers that got pulled over," Hulsmann said.

So in December, he paid $3,500 at auction for the 20-year-old bus, which gets 6 miles a gallon but has a floor that can be easily hosed.

He has a $1 million liability policy on each rider. He figures the home delivery service will cost him about $25,000 a year.

That's less than the legal price of three non-injury DUIs.

Thirteen people rode the bus last Saturday. Few could walk a straight line, much less legally drive the curvy roads twisting through the pines.

The picturesque village is best-known for its fireworks on July 4, Yule Log hunt and 2005 comedy-drama poker bust.

Others know it for O'Malley's, a grill-your-own-steaks joint and bar that has earned its stripes with bikers and bureaucrats alike after 24 years under the influence of Hulsmann.

"This is a fun place," said Daren Palmer, who was feeling no pain Saturday when his wife loaded him on the bus at 1 a.m.

Laughter, flirtations and bantering erupted as the bus rambled along moonlit roads dotted by darkened homes. The bus passed two police cars, one on the road and another parked in the shadows.

First off was a newcomer slouched in the back seat who wasn't sure where he lived, but Hulsmann figured it out. The inebriated man stumbled off the bus, then stood dazed under a streetlight to get his bearings.

Palmer settled in for the seven-mile journey to his suburban Monument home. A 10-mile radius is about as far as this bus goes.

"One time I called him from Denver and asked for a ride; I really did," Palmer said, cracking himself up at the memory.

Palmer Lake Police officer Alan Sekowski, who patrols the bar inside and out, is tasked with public safety in this town with little crime to chase. He said DUI arrests have decreased.

"He takes care of his customers and makes sure they get home safe," Sekowski said over the clamor of off-key singing and off-color jokes.

Jacob Shirk, the Monument police chief and acting Palmer Lake police chief, supports Hulsmann's service, saying, "If he has taken home one driver who's drunk, that's one less arrest we would make."

Bus riders aren't the town drunks. They are, for the most part, hardworking locals who cut loose at O'Malley's without worry about anything more than a hangover.

Some hand Hulsmann their car keys, if he doesn't demand them first. Most take their keys home and retrieve their cars when sober.

"It's nice to have this option. I was usually the DD (designated driver)," said a tipsy Sandi Kenny as she boarded the 2 a.m. bus.

Riders on that run included Jones and three family members.

"The family that buses together, stays together," said his wife, Charlene.

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