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By KEVIN WACK, Staff Writer Thursday, March 22, 2007

It was the tail end of another booze-filled night in Portland's Old Port.

A group of revelers stepped out of Bull Feeney's and into the rainy March air. Their mood was jovial, but instead of getting behind the wheel, the bar patrons crowded into the back seat of a nearby sport utility vehicle. Fifteen minutes later, they were deposited safely outside a hotel near the Maine Turnpike.

The driver was Dan Furst, a 36-year-old Scarborough resident who is the founder and owner of Home Runners, a taxi service with a twist. The company uses intoxicated bar patrons' own vehicles to drive them home, saving them the inconvenience of retrieving their cars the following day.

The company is modeled after a similar service in California. It is believed to be the first business of its kind in Maine and is winning praise from bar owners and police.

"It's a great service," said Dale Stockburger, co-owner of Brian Boru's, a Portland bar that recommends Home Runners to its customers.

"It reduces the opportunity for people to say, 'I didn't have any choice but to drive,'" said Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion.

Furst launched Home Runners on St. Patrick's Day in 2005. He'd read an article about Home James, a chauffeur service in Los Angeles, and saw an opportunity to do something similar in the Portland area. At the time, Furst was working as a kindergarten teacher and initially didn't give up his day job.

"I used to say, 'I do day care during the day and adult day care at night,'" he jokingly recalled.

Today, Furst has made it his full-time job. He has a crew of about 10 drivers. They're generally folks with families and daytime jobs looking to make some extra cash at night. The service costs $20 for rides within Portland and $30 for rides to or from Cape Elizabeth, Falmouth, Scarborough, South Portland and Westbrook. By comparison, taxi rates in Portland are $1.90 for the first one-tenth of a mile and $2.50 for each additional mile.

Last summer, Home Runners picked up 15 to 25 drivers on busy weekend nights, according to Furst.

One potential competitor, Elite Taxi owner Walter Davenport, said he likes the sound of Furst's business.

"I certainly encourage it," he said. "It sounds like a wonderful program."

Around 10 p.m. on a recent Saturday, six Home Runners drivers converged at the 24-hour Tim Hortons near Mill Creek Park in South Portland.

The crew sipped coffee and talked about their encounters with drunken drivers.

There was the man who crashed his car near the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Portland, then decided to catch the train to New Hampshire to eliminate the chance of getting a ticket.

There was the woman who got a ride from Home Runners, but once her car was parked in her driveway, hopped behind the steering wheel and plowed into the back of another parked vehicle.

And there was the man who passed out in the back seat of his own car and wouldn't wake up even when water was poured on his head. The Home Runners driver didn't have the man's home address, so he eventually left the man outside a police station, where an officer promised to keep an eye on him.

"You really learn drunk behavior on this job," said Joel Walker, one of the company's drivers.

Business on this particular night was slow, perhaps because of the steady rain. The waiting drivers started guessing about when the first call would come. Sometime after 11 p.m., a cell phone finally rang.

The idea behind Home Runners is simple, but its execution can be more complicated.

Furst uses a 65-pound fold-up motorized scooter to reach his customers. He then folds the scooter and puts it in the trunk of his customer's vehicle. After dropping off a customer, he unfolds the scooter and zips back to the bars.

But his scooter doesn't perform well in the rain, so on this night, Furst got inside the car of a fellow driver, Mary Behrens. Tonight it would be her responsibility to follow Furst to his destination, then give him a ride to the next customer.

Around midnight, they stopped at The Snug, a bar at the foot of Munjoy Hill.

Furst took a set of keys from a man who said he'd been charged about a year ago with operating under the influence.

Tonight, the man seemed relatively sober, but he said he's learned his lesson, and he'll never take the chance of getting another drunken driving conviction. He said Home Runners provides a valuable service.

Furst agrees, even though chauffeuring drunken bar patrons is a far different calling than teaching kindergarten.

These days, Furst said, he often goes to sleep at 6 a.m. and wakes up around 2 p.m.

"Lately I've been taking Monday and Tuesday nights off," he said. "I call it the poor man's weekend."