MDA lockup a success

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Hundreds of business owners in the Santa Barbara area were arrested yesterday.
Fortunately, the paddy wagons taking them away were luxury limousines, and after they raised “bail money” in the form of donations to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, jailers released them back into the free world.

“I was kind of hoping to get roughed up a little more,” Matthew Arnold of Arnold Brothers Construction said as he sat at a table on the roof of Hotel Andalucia, the prison cell for jailbirds as they made calls to friends, family and business associates, trying to raise cash to earn their freedom.
Organizers for MDA’s annual Executive Lockup asked each felon to try to raise $2,600, which would send four children aged 6 to 21 to a week-long camp for those with a neuromuscular disease. Arnold said he had already raised $750 by noon, and nobody had turned him down.
“The hard part is getting a hold of people,” Arnold said.
Meghan Fay, MDA program coordinator, said the event is usually one of the local MDA chapter’s biggest fundraisers, with about $119,000 raised last year and a comparable amount expected to pour in this year.
Fay said they expected between 150 and 200 business leaders to be arrested yesterday. Once they arrived at the hotel, volunteer jailers booked and sentenced them, taking a souvenir mug shot of each owner behind bars, dressed in a black-and-white-striped shirt and cap.
Money raised yesterday will support the local MDA summer camp as well as a clinic at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara and support centers in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Funds will also help purchase wheelchairs, leg braces and communication devices, said Kelly Craig, MDA health care services coordinator.
Organizers said jailbirds that made their bail will appear on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon.