Chug for charity at the Downtown Cares Bar Crawl

By Andrea Domanick

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 | 11:50 p.m.

Downtown bars want you to drink for a good cause -- and they don't just mean taking the edge off the workweek.

Eleven venues in the area have banded together to host a bar crawl Thursday night to benefit the grassroots, nonprofit Downtown Cares Las Vegas.

While not a proper "crawl" -- patrons are free to stop by bars of their choice at any time -- participating bars will feature drink specials like 2-for-1 martinis from 7 to 10 p.m. Each venue will give 20 percent of revenue collected in that time to Downtown Cares toward the organization's next community service project.

Spearheaded by El Cortez and community development firm Moonridge Group, Downtown Cares was founded last November as a one-day event for local small businesses and individuals to do volunteer work together. According to El Cortez Executive Manager Alexandra Epstein, the event -- in which volunteers renovated the Robert Gordon Plaza senior living facility -- was so successful that the group decided to branch out.

"We thought it would just be a one-off thing, but the response was so incredible that we decided to continue and do three or so projects throughout the year," she says.

Epstein says Downtown Cares will use proceeds from the bar crawl for a similar renovation project in downtown, the details of which will be announced next month.

Participating bars include the Parlour at El Cortez, the Beat, Insert Coin(s), Vanguard Lounge, the Griffin, Downtown Cocktail Room, Mob Bar, Hennessey’s Tavern, Micky Finnz, Lady Silvia and Artifice. For more information, visit the event's Facebook page.

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