Simi Valley Bets on Booze as America Sobers Up:
As the national trend toward drinking less grows, Simi Valley's service clubs keep hosting charity events that promote alcohol consumption.
SIMI VALLEY NEWSADDICTION RECOVERYFEATURED
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — Fewer Americans drink today than at any time in nearly 90 years. Simi Valley's charity calendar has not caught up.
On Saturday, Lemon Park hosts what the event's website bills as California's largest one-day Oktoberfest. Like many of the city's fundraisers, it is built around alcohol consumption.
The festivals raise money for good causes. But they also carry health and safety risks, and they can be hard on residents in recovery. That raises a question worth asking: Does a city whose charity calendar runs on beer have other ways to raise that money?
A charity calendar built on beer
Nearly a quarter of the events in Visit Simi Valley's 2026 festival calendar advertise beer or wine, and most are run by service clubs raising money for local charities.
Oktoberfest, hosted by a local service club, sells VIP tickets that include an all-day free beer pass. The same club's Happy Face Music Festival offered VIPs free beer refills. Another club's Beer Fest sold unlimited tastings in August, and the twice-yearly Street Fair has a beer and wine garden.
Taxpayers help. Of the $25,000 the City Council gave community events in 2025, a significant portion went to alcohol-centered events, including Oktoberfest and Happy Face, according to grant amounts reported by the Simi Valley Acorn. Most of the festivals are held in public parks, where Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District rules allow drinking only by special permit. The district's own Music in the Park concerts tell guests, "Alcohol is permitted, intoxication is not." And on Saturday, as Oktoberfest winds down, a third club opens a 21-and-over bar night at the district's Steampunk festival.
The money matters. In 2023, the club behind Oktoberfest and Happy Face donated $13,000 to 13 local charities from the two festivals. The clubs have not publicly reported how much of their proceeds come from alcohol sales.
Fewer drinkers, louder warnings — and a city that keeps pouring
Just 54% of U.S. adults now say they drink, the lowest share since Gallup began asking in 1939, and a majority says even moderate drinking is bad for their health. Among adults 18 to 34, only half drink, down from 58% two years earlier. That matters for any fundraiser hoping to draw a younger crowd. Yet City Hall is still betting on alcohol: In 2025, the city of Simi Valley gave thousands of dollars to community events centered on alcohol consumption, including Oktoberfest. The City Council approved the grants 4-0, with Mayor Dee Dee Cavanaugh, then mayor pro tem, voting in favor, the Acorn reported. The same package also funded several alcohol-free events.
In January 2025, the U.S. surgeon general called alcohol the third-leading preventable cause of cancer, after tobacco and obesity. Drinking raises the risk of at least seven cancers, including breast, colorectal and liver cancer, yet fewer than half of Americans know it, the advisory says. Alcohol is linked to nearly 100,000 U.S. cancer cases and about 20,000 cancer deaths a year, the ASCO Post reported. The surgeon general urged cancer warnings on alcohol labels.
Excessive drinking also killed about 178,000 Americans a year in 2020 and 2021, according to the CDC.
Hard on Simi Valley families and residents in recovery
A community calendar built around drinking can be especially hard on people who struggle with alcohol addiction. About one in 10 U.S. adults had alcohol use disorder in 2024, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. If Simi Valley matches that rate, roughly 10,000 of its adults would have the condition. Fewer than one in 10 adults with the disorder got treatment that year, the institute reports.
The harm reaches families, too. More than 12 million U.S. children lived with a parent who had alcohol use disorder in 2023, according to an NIAAA analysis of federal survey data. Parental drinking plays a role in up to one in 10 cases of child abuse and neglect, the institute says. And children whose parents have the disorder are four times more likely to develop drinking problems themselves, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
For people trying to stay sober, constant reminders can make recovery harder. "The sight or thought of alcohol or related cues can trigger cravings, or the urge to drink," the NIAAA says. This fall, signs for Oktoberfest line Cochran Street and Los Angeles Avenue. For someone in recovery, a daily drive down either street can bring on those very cravings. Online, the Visit Simi Valley tourism site promotes Oktoberfest as "the only event where all your beer is included!"
What else works
Safe rides. For its Irish Festival this summer, Dublin, Ohio, partnered with Central Ohio Safe Ride and Lyft to give festivalgoers $10 off rides, the city says. Here, Visit Simi Valley's Oktoberfest page already offers a hotel discount code, "PROST." A ride code would be a short step.
Alcohol-free fundraisers. In Palmdale, a Kiwanis club raised more than $50,000 for local schools and charities in 2021 by selling a record 12,508 rubber ducks for a race, the Antelope Valley Press reported. Rotary clubs elsewhere, including in Sitka, Alaska, run similar races.
Sober challenges. Some fundraisers ask people not to drink at all. Australia's Dry July asks people to skip alcohol for a month and collect pledges from friends. Since 2008, it has raised more than 100 million Australian dollars for people affected by cancer, according to the Dry July Foundation.
Sober festivals. A festival does not need a beer tent to draw a crowd. In 2023, The Phoenix, a national nonprofit for people in recovery, held its second SoCal SoberFest in Long Beach, with live music, comedy and art. Entry was free for anyone with at least 48 hours of sobriety, including friends and supporters. Last year in Denver, the group co-hosted the Dry Hop Fest, billed as America's first nonalcoholic beer festival, with more than 30 nonalcoholic brands.
Local models. Simi Valley's own grants also back events built around running, culture and family fun, such as the Dash for Down Syndrome, a 5K and kids' dash, and the free Hispanic Heritage Festival. Neither event's promotions mention alcohol.
Same calendar, same risks
The warnings are not new. Nationally, about a third of deaths from excessive drinking come from drinking too much on a single occasion, according to the CDC. Yet Simi Valley's charity calendar looks much as it has for years, despite the significant health risks tied to alcohol. Oktoberfest still offers an all-day free beer pass.
The evidence points one way. Fewer people want to drink. The health risks are clearer than ever. And alcohol-impaired crashes killed nearly 12,000 Americans in 2024, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Even so, the community service clubs behind these festivals keep raising money by embracing and promoting alcohol consumption. Other towns have found ways to raise money without relying on a beer tent and a drinking culture. So far, nothing on Simi Valley's festival websites suggests the clubs are looking for one.
Oktoberfest's beer tent opens at 11 a.m. Saturday at Lemon Park. "The beer will pour, rain or shine," Oktoberfest's website promises. As the rest of the world wises up to the health and safety risks of drinking, Simi Valley is doing its civic duty: keeping the breweries, the wineries and the rehab centers in business.
Need help? Help is available around the clock for anyone who overindulges at Simi Valley Oktoberfest or any of the city's other alcohol-centered events. Ventura County Behavioral Health's substance use treatment line, listed on the city's website, is 844-385-9200. The federal SAMHSA National Helpline, 1-800-662-4357, is free and confidential. In an emergency, call 911.
The Simi Valley Ledger is an Official Publication of The Freedom Project © 2026
The Simi Valley Ledger in Simi Valley's Investigative News Source.
We are telling Simi Valley's Story
Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss a story.
We care about your data in our privacy policy.