By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
At around 7:30 a.m. Saturday, a black limousine pulled up to a house on 89th Street to pick up a group of women who were headed to a morning pajama party at the Kix-McNutley’s bar and entertainment complex in Sea Isle City.
The affable limo driver was clad in a comical Playboy magazine magnate Hugh Hefner-style pajama outfit highlighted by a satin-collared robe.
“They think I’m Hugh. I said, ‘No, I’m Lenny,”’ the driver noted of his passengers.
Actually, the “driver” was none other than Sea Isle Mayor Leonard Desiderio. He spent part of Saturday morning chauffeuring groups of women to Kix-McNutley’s for some “Girls Weekend” partying.
Desiderio, who owns Kix-McNutley’s, throws a pajama party every year as one of the centerpieces of Girls Weekend, a popular annual Sea Isle event that lets the ladies get away from their husbands and boyfriends for a weekend of shopping, dining, drinking and dancing at the shore.
“This is becoming one of the signature events of Girls Weekend,” Desiderio said of the pajama party. “It’s a good way to start off a day of shopping, dining or whatever. You can see it’s such a good atmosphere. It’s such a good time.”
As Desiderio spoke, hundreds of women crowded the dance floor as music boomed over the sound system at Kix-McNutley’s.
The limo rides were added as a new attraction this year for the pajama party. Michelle Bitzberger, of Thornton, Pa., was part of a group of eight women who were chauffeured by the mayor from the aforementioned house on 89th Street to the party.
“Lenny brought us all in a limo,” Bitzberger said, breaking into a smile. “We didn’t know he was the mayor. It was a surprise. We knew we would get picked up by a limo, but not by the mayor.”
Bitzberger explained that her sister, Mary Lynne Shaffer, who owns the house on 89th Street, knows the mayor and arranged for the limo ride.
Bitzberger and her friends, all from Delaware County, Pa., started the morning by drinking mimosas.
After partying at Kix-McNutley’s, the women planned to hit the local shops and would cap off the night with some dinner at a Sea Isle restaurant. In between all of the partying, shopping and dining, they would probably take a nap to re-energize, Bitzberger noted.
This was the fourth year that Bitzberger, her sister and their friends have taken part in Girls Weekend. Their weekend getaway this year includes a celebration for Shaffer’s 57th birthday.
For the women, there is a big social component to Girls Weekend. After they are done visiting the stores, they often spend a relaxing evening together having drinks and dinner and hitting the dance floor – minus the husbands and boyfriends.
Bitzberger’s husband had a few words of advice for her before she left for Sea Isle: “Have a great time. Have fun. You deserve it,” she said.
Janet McGugan, of Avalon, and Lynn Ellinger, who lives in Fort Washington, Pa., and has a vacation home in Sea Isle, were part of a Girls Weekend group of four women. They said they enjoy making new friends at Girls Weekend each year.
“Every year, we make more and more forever friends,” Ellinger said. “We all have the same thing in common: We like to have fun.”
McGugan, who was dressed in a shirt inscribed with the words “pajama party,” pointed out that her husband was fully supportive of her weekend jaunt down to the shore with the other “girls.”
“Go have a blast. Enjoy yourself,” McGugan said of what her husband told her.
To show her husband that they were having a great time, McGugan sent him a photo of their group riding in the limo.
The limo driver stopped at their house on 33rd Street for a lift to the pajama party. But the person behind the wheel wasn’t the mayor. For them, the limo driver was the mayor’s wife, Carmela Desiderio.
