Mcgillicuddy City A No-Go In Royal City

Royal City will remain Royal City, despite the lure of $100,000 to rename this rural town after a brand of schnapps.

Mike Stark, mayor of this town of 1,104 halfway between Seattle and Spokane, created a minor sensation when he told a reporter earlier this month that Royal City should consider applying to take part in a promotion by a New Orleans bottling company.

Sazerac Co. is offering $100,000 to a town willing to be change its name to McGillicuddy City, after Sazerac’s Canadian-made schnapps, Dr. McGillicuddy. “Hey, we’ll do whatever it takes. We need the money,” Stark told a newspaper reporter, saying he planned to discuss the offer at the next City Council meeting.

Stark and City Hall employees then began receiving calls from reporters as far away as New Zealand, Canada, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.

Stark dodged most of the calls, and said Tuesday he had been halfjoking when he spoke to the reporter.

“Obviously, it surprised me there was so much interest,” he added.

In any case, every City Council member had already heard about the promotion when Stark raised the issue at Monday’s meeting.

“So I said, ‘I’d like to present it to you and ask if you have any interest. They basically said, ‘No.”’