A car nearly slammed into the Red Onion Saloon Saturday. (Liz Lavoie Photo)
Restaurant-goers and workers at the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway were startled Saturday morning when a car nearly rammed into the building.
“This is a new one. Lots of weird things have happened, but this one was new,” said Red Onion Operations Manager Liz Lavoie.
Lavoie says at about 10:30 on Saturday morning, a driver with Yukon license plates barreled towards the front of the restaurant on Broadway Street.
“Apparently from what I heard he was trying to park, kind of coming in for a parallel park, and his foot slipped off the brake and into the gas,” Lavoie said.
Skagway Police Chief Ray Leggett says the 73-year-old man drove into a post and bench in front of the restaurant. Two tourists sitting outside suffered minor injuries.
The Red Onion is located in downtown Skagway’s historic district, where thousands of cruise ship passengers converge on a daily basis during the summer. There was just one ship in town Saturday.
“I mean we’re just absolutely grateful of the fact that it was a low ship day and there weren’t many people on the boardwalk,” Leggett said. “It could’ve easily been one of our four-cruise-ship days and possibly more people would be injured.”
Leggett says the driver was not intoxicated.
The crash broke two of the Red Onion’s front windows. Lavoie says the windows have been replaced with Plexiglas for now. She did not have an estimate of how much the damage was going to cost.
