The Houston Airport System wants to invite you to a soiree this evening featuring champagne and lobster.

HAS says it isn't using public money to fund the party. Instead, SSP America, an airport concessionaire operator, is the real host and ready to serve up four-star dining along with valet parking.

The airport's friends in the media were sent an e-mail invitation from Darian Ward, a public relations specialist at the airport, with this message:

We hope you can make it out to the VIP taste-testing event Tuesday, December 15th. We'll have lobster, champagne, valet parking and holiday cheer provided by SSP America.

So that name on the invitation, Houston Airport System? Just ignore it. They were just helping out, they said. They don't even get to choose the guest list.

The event is for anyone SSP wants to invite, Ward said. She is handling only the RSVPs for the media invitees, which did not include Texas Watchdog -- but we're used to that sort of thing.

We were concerned about the idea of public money somehow footing the bills for the pricey crustaceans and libations.

"SSP is taking care of everything," Ward said. "They are doing it for their employees, and anyone else they want to invite."

SSP pays the city between 12 and 14 percent on all food gross sales and 15 percent on gross sales of booze, according to the contract between the Houston Airport System and SSP that took effect July 2008.

Tonight, though, it's all on the house if you happen to be a favored invitee.

But should a public concessionaire be holding the party at all? What if the company that hauls away the garbage threw a party in the council chambers at City Hall? Or a vendor supplying security cameras to state patrol cars had its Christmas event at the Capitol?

In this case, HAS apparently views the arrangement as proper.

SSP America did not return calls.

See the press release here for tonight's event.