Someone Cut Out With Special Pair of Ceremonial Scissors

It was the unkindest cut of all.

The 3-foot-long scissors that sliced through the garland of starting-line balloons and launched the Orange County centennial bike ride Sunday have been spirited away.

“I don’t have the foggiest idea what happened to them,” said Susan Dobak, an associate producer with Select Productions, which was hired to decorate the starting line just outside the Anaheim Stadium parking lot.

The bike tour was the premiere event of a year of festivities celebrating Orange County’s birthday on Aug. 1, 1889. More than 13,000 cyclists joined the ride.

The scissors are real, unlike most cardboard mock-ups used at ribbon-cuttings, Doback said, and would cost $500 to $700 to replace.

On Sunday, the red-handled scissors had been used by several VIPs from AST Research, a sponsor of the event, accompanied by Mickey Mouse and Snoopy, to snip a string holding down an arch of orange and white helium balloons.

The VIPs and the critters exited with the scissors to one side of the street, and the scissors apparently were laid down in the hectic moments when the ride began. Dobak went to the other side of the street.

She wasn’t able to retrieve them because the throng of bicyclists was pedaling past, she said. And by the time she got there, the scissors were gone.

“Maybe somebody wandering by thought they would make a good souvenir,” Dobak said.

The scissors are about 25 years old and have been used in countless other events, including the opening of the San Diego Freeway section through Irvine some 20 years ago, she said.

They were custom made and “would be impossible to replace,” Dobak said. “We’re hoping that someone will be good enough to contact us so we can get them back, no questions asked.”

Dobak can be reached at (714) 730-7701