Drinking running club winds up in court against Aerojet
By Andy Furillo, Sacramento Bee
They call it a “hash” and they hold them from Lake Tahoe to Davis – runs for the fun-loving who like to mix a few beers in with their jogging miles.
There’s the “Donut Dash Hash” scheduled for next month in Land Park, and for anybody who can’t wait for the “4/20 Hash” on April 20, there’s the “Can’t Wait for 4/20 Hash” on April 16.
But some of the fun has gone out of the hash in the last few years. A routine, mid-week jog that veered into Aerojet-General spawned a lawsuit and a countersuit. It also cooled off the mojo of the Sacramento Hash House Harriers, the local franchise of a worldwide organization that calls itself “The Drinking Club with a Running Problem.”
“People were quite scared afterward,” said Daniel, a 45-year-old South Lake Tahoe engineer whose telephone number is on the harriers’ website, but who declined to give his last name for fear it would affect his job.
The trouble began on May 16, 2007, the date of a hash on Aerojet property that one member described as “epic.” The run started at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, crept along the Folsom South Canal, and then cut off into 8,500 acres of Aerojet wildland, where scientists test rocket launchers and cruise missiles and chemicals that can kill on contact.