Leave it to the libertines at the Redwood City Library Foundation (RCLF) to devise a unique way to ridicule recent calls for banning books: Hold a pub-crawl fundraiser where patrons could enjoy discounted drinks while reviewing supposedly objectionable materials.
On September 21, participants strolled through downtown Redwood City and visited the Alhambra Irish House, Angelicas, Gourmet Haus Staudt and other dispensers of pleasing libations. Each location featured a banned book, with an RCLF board member on hand to answer questions about why the work presumably posed a threat to decency or democracy.
The event, whose organizers invoked comparisons between censorship and Prohibition, coincided with Banned Books Week, an annual occasion promoted by the American Library Association and other groups to protest intolerance aimed at ideas.
