With a wink and a rose, ‘Charlie Chaplin’ welcomed shoppers to the Montrose Shopping Park.
By Charly SHELTON
Tuesday may have been St. Valentine’s Day but it was over the prior weekend that the Montrose Shopping Park celebrated. On Saturday, Montrose Shopping Park Assn. members Steve Pierce and Dale Dawson, along with Charlie Chaplin impersonator Audrey Ruttan, handed out roses to all the ladies shopping and dining in the popular shopping park. Guests were also invited to stop and take photos in a specially made Montrose Valentine photo opp.
“This is our third year [handing out roses] and it’s just something we thought of as a way to bless our ladies who come to town on the Saturday before Valentine’s Day,” Dawson said. “So we buy 500 long-stem roses and I trim them in the back of my shop (Mountain Rose Gifts), prune them and cut the edges off. Then we invite Charlie to come in from the desert and we have fun.”
The trio stood on the southeast corner of Honolulu Avenue and Ocean View Boulevard in front of Starbucks and handed out the roses from an old country wagon. The women receiving the roses appeared very pleased, some even moved to tears.
“The first year, it was like ‘I don’t know, I don’t know if I want one.’ It was like the Hare Krishnas in the airport back in the ’60s. But I say, ‘They’re free’ and they go ‘Oh, thank you!’ So I think it’s just a good memory for people,” Dawson said. “All of a sudden you see every lady in town walking around with a long-stem rose. I don’t know if other communities do this, but we think we’re special and we want our ladies to think they’re special.”
Montrose’s next big event in the Shopping Park comes the day after St. Patrick’s Day – the first annual Spring Wine Walk. From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 18, ticketed guests can stroll up and down Honolulu Avenue, stopping in at any of the 20 stations to receive a taste of wine and appetizers. The tickets are $45 per person and guests receive 15 pours of wine, a logo wine glass to be used along the Wine Walk and a voucher for $10 in Montrose scrip to be used for goods and services throughout the Shopping Park. The event will be held rain or shine, so let’s hope for shine.
To purchase tickets and for more information, visit shopmontrose.com or head over to Mountain Rose Gifts, Copy Network, It Takes A Village, Casa Cordoba or Grayson’s Tune Town, all in Montrose Shopping Park.