Has the mayor's new girlfriend, who is only 20, been drinking?
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's new squeeze, Brittanie Mountz, just turned 20 last month -- and that raises a couple of questions about the couple's nights on the town. The biggest question is whether Mountz has been drinking, and it's been swirling since the pair made their first public appearance and walked down the red carpet together at the San Francisco Symphony in September.
At the time, Mountz had a MySpace page that said she was 19. It now says she's 26.
But according to the Sonoma County registrar of voters, the Rohnert Park resident turned 20 on Sept. 17 -- three weeks and two days before Newsom turned 39.
A model by day, by night the Sonoma State alum works as a hostess at San Francisco's trendy Aqua restaurant, where she and the mayor met.
Photos of Mountz holding a wine glass during the opening of the new Westfield San Francisco Shopping Center, where Newsom also made an appearance, raised some eyebrows.
The photos had been posted on society photographer Drew Altizer's Web site this past week. After Chronicle City Hall reporter Cecilia Vega began asking whether Mountz had been drinking alcohol at an event where the mayor was present, the photos promptly came down.
The questions infuriated Newsom, who told a group of reporters Friday, "I've got to deal with all kinds of terrible calls from reporters doing horrible things that are mean-spirited."
Whether Mountz was actually drinking alcohol at the shopping center opening remains a mystery. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful.
But Newsom spokesman Peter Ragone distanced his boss from the event, saying the mayor and Mountz had arrived separately and had not been there together.
In a statement, Ragone said, "Brittanie is a friend of the mayor's. They did not attend the Bloomingdale's event together. Obviously there has been some uncertainty about her age. However, given what The Chronicle has dug up on her, if she was in fact drinking, that is a mistake."
Newsom has never provided Mountz with any alcohol, and if she ever had a drink in his presence, that's news to the mayor, Ragone said.
"If she was drinking," he said, "the mayor didn't notice."
By the way, Mountz's voter registration revealed something else interesting -- she's a Republican.
He doesn't notice such things. He's prolly far too busy mayoring and trying to figure out which State and Federal Laws he won't enforce. Yes, there's a picture of the happy couple at the link. The SF notion of "the beautiful people", I'm sure.