CHOW: Downtown Is Ready To Reopen
SEPTEMBER 24 - 30, 2020 • TUCSONWEEKLY.COM • FREE
Pride 2020 Out With Gender, In With Art & Mutual Aid Local trans and gender-nonconforming community turns to art initiatives, community connection and grassroots fundraising during pandemic. By Emily Dieckman
CANNABIS 520: Weed Prop Leads in Polls
THE SKINNY: McSally’s Sinking Campaign
CURRENTS: Evicted in a Pandemic
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SEPT. 24, 2020
SEPT. 24, 2020 | VOL. 35, NO. 39
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STAFF ADMINISTRATION Jason Joseph, President/Publisher jjoseph@azlocalmedia.com
CONTENTS CURRENTS
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The University of Arizona further delays their reopening plans as they crack down on student parties
THE SKINNY
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Mark Kelly continues to outpace Martha McSally in polls and fundraising
PRIDE SPECIAL
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Virtual Pride
EDITOR’S NOTE
Casey Anderson, Ad Director/ Associate Publisher, Ext. 22 casey@tucsonlocalmedia.com Claudine Sowards, Accounting, Ext. 13 claudine@tucsonlocalmedia.com Sheryl Kocher, Receptionist, Ext. 10 sheryl@tucsonlocalmedia.com
EVERY FALL, THE LOCAL LGBT community gathers for a Pride celebration. (Many communities do this in June, in observance of New York City’s Stonewall riots, but here in Tucson, we wait for cooler weather.) This year’s Pride event will be a virtual one, as a big gathering still doesn’t make a lot of sense with the current spread of virus. In this week’s cover package, calendar editor Emily Dieckman looks at how the LGBT community has been coping with the pandemic and associate editor Jeff Gardner has the details on upcoming Pride events. Meanwhile, staff reporter Kathleen Kunz brings us two stories about the impacts of coronavirus. In one, a schoolteacher and his family have found themselves homeless because of the virus; in another, UA President Robert Robbins continues to crack down on students who just can’t stop partying despite the high rate of COVID transmission on campus. With fall’s cooler weather on the way, outdoor dining is looking a lot more attractive. In recent weeks, downtown res-
taurants have been expanding their patios and otherwise preparing to reopen with new health protocols in place. Managing editor Austin Counts looks at how downtown Tucson is preparing for an Oct. 1 reopening. The Skinny this week looks at how Sen. Martha McSally is pushing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court before the November election. Looks like McSally must recognize that voters aren’t warming to her, so she’s gotta do Trump’s bidding before she loses her Senate seat. We also have the usual comics, columns, puzzles and more in the book this week, so dig in and visit us at TucsonWeekly.com for more.
EDITORIAL Jim Nintzel, Executive Editor, Ext. 38 jimn@tucsonlocalmedia.com Austin Counts, Managing Editor, Ext. 36 austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Jeff Gardner, Associate Editor, Ext. 43 jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com Mike Truelsen, Web Editor, Ext. 35 mike@tucsonlocalmedia.com Kathleen Kunz, Staff Reporter, Ext. 42 kathleen@tucsonlocalmedia.com Contributors: Lee Allen, Rob Brezsny, Max Cannon, Rand Carlson, Tom Danehy, Emily Dieckman, Bob Grimm, Andy Mosier, Xavier Omar Otero, Linda Ray, Margaret Regan, David Safier, Will Shortz, Jen Sorensen, Eric Swedlund, Mark Whittaker PRODUCTION David Abbott, Production Manager, Ext. 18 david@tucsonlocalmedia.com Louie Armendariz, Graphic Designer, Ext. 29 louie@tucsonlocalmedia.com Ryan Dyson, Graphic Designer, Ext. 26 ryand@tucsonlocalmedia.com CIRCULATION Alex Carrasco, Circulation, Ext. 17, alexc@tucsonlocalmedia.com ADVERTISING
Jim Nintzel Executive Editor Hear Nintz talk about the latest news about the coronavirus recovery at 8:30 a.m. Wednesdays on The Frank Show on KLPX, 96.1 FM.
Out with gender, in with art and mutual aid
RANDOM SHOTS By Rand Carlson
CHOW
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As the pandemic takes a bite out of business, ethnic restaurants cook up ways to survive
Jaime Hood, General Manager, Ext. 12 jaime@tucsonlocalmedia.com
Cover design by Ryan Dyson
Kristin Chester, Account Executive, Ext. 25 kristin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Candace Murray, Account Executive, Ext. 24 candace@tucsonlocalmedia.com Lisa Hopper, Account Executive Ext. 39 lisa@tucsonlocalmedia.com Tyler Vondrak, Account Executive, Ext. 27 tyler@tucsonlocalmedia.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING VMG Advertising, (888) 278-9866 or (212) 475-2529 Tucson Weekly® is published every Thursday by 13 Street Media at 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona. Address all editorial, business and production correspondence to: Tucson Weekly, 7225 N. Mona Lisa Rd., Ste. 125, Tucson, Arizona 85741. Phone: (520) 797-4384, FAX (520) 575-8891. First Class subscriptions, mailed in an envelope, cost $112 yearly/53 issues. Sorry, no refunds on subscriptions. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN). The Tucson Weekly® and Best of Tucson® are registered trademarks of 10/13 Communications. Back issues of the Tucson Weekly are available for $1 each plus postage for the current year. Publisher has the right to refuse any advertisement at his or her discretion.
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THE SKINNY SEPT. 24, 2020
THE CASE AGAINST MARTHA MCSALLY Arizona’s Appointed Senator Is Pushing for Trump To Appoint Another Supreme Court Justice, but She’s Losing in the Court of Public Opinion By Jim Nintzel jnintzel@tucsonweekly.com APPOINTED U.S. SEN. MARTHA McSally wasted no time in declaring she would push through President Donald Trump’s choice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court. Within 15 minutes of tweeting her condolences to Ginsburg’s family, McSally tweeted: “This U.S. Senate should vote on President Trump’s next nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.” Democrat Mark Kelly, the retired NASA astronaut and former Navy combat pilot who is challenging McSally, said the same thing that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in 2016: The winners of this year’s presidential election and Senate races should decide the future of the seat. “When it comes to making a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, Washington shouldn’t rush that process for political purposes,” Kelly said. “This is a decision that will impact Arizonans, especially with an upcoming case about health care and protections for pre-existing conditions. Arizonans will begin casting their ballots in a few weeks and I believe the people elected to the presidency and Senate in November should fill this vacancy.” McSally’s call to give the seat to Trump’s appointee is just another example of how McSally, who once portrayed herself as an independent representative for Arizona, has fallen into line as one of Trump’s most loyal minions. Whether it will help McSally on the campaign trail remains to be seen. McSally has trailed Kelly in more than a dozen September polls. A Fox News poll released Sept. 2 showed the former
NASA astronaut with staggering 17-point lead over the appointed Republican incumbent; a Sienna College/New York Times poll released Sept. 18 showed Kelly with an 8-point edge. But a Monmouth University released Sept. 18 poll showed that in lowturnout race among likely voters, Kelly led by just 1 percentage point. (In a high turnout race, Kelly led by 4 percentage points among likely voters.) Based on the polling average between Sept. 4 and Sept. 16, RealClearPolitics.com gives Kelly a 6.7 percent edge over McSally, with Kelly’s averaged support at 50 percent and McSally’s average at 43.3 percent. Team McSally tried to skew the averages with poll released this week showing Kelly with a 2-point lead. But unlike many other polls that are out there, pollster Fabrizio, Lee & Associates gave very few details about the polling and released no crosstabs. The McSally poll did note that surveyed voters thought McSally was more likely to stand up to China and do more to prevent illegal immigration. But it didn’t include any details about who those voters trusted more in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. McSally has done next to nothing to deal with the impact of the virus. She initially opposed the $600-a-week unemployment payment and—other than a bogus stunt to keep those benefits coming for an extra week when they ran out—hasn’t fought her party’s leadership to keep those benefits available. She’s opposed aid to state and local governments dealing with the
COURTESY PHOTOS
Based on the polling average between Sept. 4 and Sept. 16, RealClearPolitics gives Kelly a 6.7 percent edge over McSally, with Kelly’s averaged support at 50 percent and McSally’s average at 43.3 percent.
added expenses related to the pandemic, calling it a bailout for Democratic cities like Chicago. And while she has railed against China for not being forthright about the impact of the virus, she’s said that it’s no big deal that Trump confessed to investigative reporter Bob Woodward that he downplayed the severity of the virus when it first arrived. Asked about Trump’s confession that he himself had lied about the virus, McSally told reporters: “You guys are awful.” Yes, that’s right: McSally thinks it’s just terrible that members of the press would ask her for her reaction to the news that Trump confessed to lying to the people about the pandemic that has killed 200,000 Americans and counting. Arizonans just haven’t taken to McSally. Two years ago, she became the first Republican to lose a U.S. Senate seat in the state in three decades when she was beaten by Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. As of this week, FiveThirtyEight.com gives Kelly a 78 percent of chance of winning the race; InsideElections.com puts the race in the “tilt Democratic” category; and Politico. com said it was leaning Democratic. As she crisscrosses the state, McSally dismisses fake polls but in her fundraising appeals, she confesses that she is in desperate straits. Kelly has consistently outraised McSally in the race; as of last month, he had raised more than $45 million and had more than $21 million in the bank for the final
stretch, while McSally had raised about $30 million and had about $11 million left to spend. But independent campaign committees have also been spending at least $30 million, much of it on TV and digital advertising. Those ads—many of them based on claims independent fact-checkers have dismissed as false or misleading— may move numbers between now and Election Day. But the truth remains that McSally has repeatedly voted to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. McSally is simply lying when she says she will “always” protect those with preexisting conditions; she’s already voted to strip them of those protections with no replacement in sight, unless you count the “plan” that Trump keeps promising to reveal in a few weeks. And with her rush to confirm another one of Trump’s justices, McSally is once again pushing to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, as the court will once again be expected to determine the constitutionality of the law. McSally says she has no position on that lawsuit as it’s outside her lane as a U.S. senator, but the Supreme Court seat makes it plain that she does have a position: She wants the ACA gone. Her promises to protect people with preexisting conditions are just more bullshit from a candidate who has been full of it since she launched her political career in Southern Arizona eight years ago. ■
SEPT. 24, 2020
CRASHING THE PARTY
performed this past week, which puts them at a 6.1 percent positivity rate. Over the previous 10 days, the university had an 11 percent positivity rate. When the state of Arizona went into lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a 10 As coronavirus continues to spread at the UA, percent positivity rate in testing. campus officials and cops are cracking down While the drop to 6.1 percent is a noticeable improvement, Robbins said the univeron student gatherings sity needs to stick with their heavy-handed mitigation strategy. The university will reBy Kathleen Kunz main in an “only essential classes in person” kathleen@tucsonlocalmedia.com phase for this upcoming week, which brings about 5,000 students to the campus for a DOZENS OF OFFICIAL ACTIONS traditional in-person learning experience. have been taken against students who Robbins reported that 100 students violated COVID-19 safety precautions and living on-campus were released from their hosted social gatherings off-campus. isolation dorms this past week, and 324 The university and the Tucson Police remain. All students who chose to live Department administered 20 red tags, 19 citations and 24 Code of Conduct violations on-campus this semester were required to take a COVID-19 test upon arrival. Those last weekend for student parties, according who tested positive were put into isolation. to UA President Robert C. Robbins, who The university has capacity for about 600 shared the numbers during a press conferisolation dorms, and Robbins said they ence Sept. 21. reached about 400 occupied isolation dorms Robbins and other university leadduring their peak. ers point to this behavior as the reason Last week the university administration COVID-19 is spreading among the comestablished a recommended 14-day quaranmunity, not the essential in-person classes tine for students living on and off campus that are currently taking place. Robbins described a party he witnessed last weekend within a specific geographical boundary. This was done in response to the uptick in that drew more than 300 college students. new COVID-19 cases at the beginning of the He said the gathering was dispersed and student sanctions resulted from the incident. semester. The quarantine was applied to all students “This kind of behavior will negatively living between Sixth Avenue to the west, affect everyone,” he said. Campbell Avenue to the east, 10th Street to Beginning in late August, the university the south and Helen Street to the north. has been tracking a gradual increase in Robbins said during the press conferCOVID-19 prevalence among students. Robbins reported 79 new cases from 1,300 tests ence that he believes the recommended
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quarantine is the cause of their decrease in COVID-19 cases over the past few days. He said the university and the local police will continue to respond to reports of student parties and some students will be expelled as a result of their actions. “We’ve gone from begging, encouraging, now into the action phase where your choices will have consequences, and there will be individuals who are asked to leave the university,” Robbins said. “It’s that simple.” Reentry Task Force director Dr. Richard Carmona said student social behavior is the “Achilles’ heel” of the university’s COVID-19 mitigation strategy. He believes the university’s COVID-19 Ambassador Team (a group of paid students who encourage compliance of COVID-19 safety measures in and around the university) will be crucial for changing
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social standards around COVID-19 and protecting public health. Brendan Duffy, a university student and member of the COVID-19 Ambassador Team, joined the press conference to give a report on their efforts. He said when they first started their work at the beginning of the semester, it was a daunting task to go around campus reminding their peers to wear face masks and stay physically distant. But in more recent days, he said it is hard to find a person on University Boulevard not wearing a face mask. Duffy reported their team has started to help support the different testing operations around campus, and this week they will have a call center available to answer COVID-19 related questions from students, faculty and staff. Duffy said their team consists of about 25 to 30 students, and they are currently recruiting more. Robbins briefly mentioned a plan to test every student every day by January 2021, so that social gatherings, sports games and other activities can resume. He said it will be expensive to do that many tests, but the university is currently planning for that possibility in the spring. ■ For more information about the university’s COVID-19 response, visit covid19. arizona.edu/dashboard.
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June when Emilio was tested and found out he had COVID-19 antibodies in his system. The family then realized they had all contracted the virus, and survived. They dealt with sickness for four months. Carolina lost her job as a caretaker for an elderly woman which she had done for 10 years. Emilio wasn’t able to teach summer school, which he had done for eight or nine years. That job provided him with significant income during the summer months. He lost $11,000 in wages from that. Carolina has lost $21,000 in wages so far. Their 25-year-old daughter lost her job at a call center near the airport. Her two daughters—who Emilio and Carolina cared for five to six days a week before COVID-19 hit—are now in the care of their paternal grandparents. By the first week in July, when the family was finally regaining their health, they were several months behind on rent. Emilio heard of Gov. Doug Ducey’s executive order that shielded renters from being evicted if they had a qualifying circumstance related to COVID-19. He contacted his landlord and began to gather the necessary documentation proving his income and how much was lost due to his sickness and absence from COURTESY PHOTO work. He contacted 211 Arizona, submitted The Bustamontes went from comfortably living to homeless in only a few months paperwork and found out he qualified to during COVID. be covered under the governor’s executive order and to receive rental assistance. When the landlord gave notice that he wanted to evict them, Carolina and the family were scared they would lose their house. People such as Emilio Bustamonte are falling through the cracks of the eviction moratorium Emilio assured them that they would be protected. He felt confident that everything would be OK. In court on July 22, Judge Susan Bacal the Sunnyside Unified School District. In By Kathleen Kunz granted the eviction despite Emilio’s paperlate February, the entire front office staff kathleen@tucsonlocalmedia.com work proving he had a qualifying circumbecame sick. stance under the executive order and had Eventually, the sickness spread to AT A PICNIC TABLE OUTSIDE signed up for rental assistance. Emilio’s entire family. No one thought his cheap hotel room, Emilio Bustamonte “She took 7.2 seconds to look at 17 pages about coronavirus at the time since cases reflects on how his life has changed over of information,” Emilio said. didn’t officially start popping up in Arizona the last month. The eviction was issued the next day, but “I’ve been a teacher for 23 years and now until March. They all assumed it was a bad Constable Marge Cummings delayed its case of the flu. I’m homeless,” he said. enforcement and kept the family in their Emilio, who is 47, worked as a respiratory Before Emilio and his family were evicted home as long as possible. therapist before he became a teacher. He in August, they lived comfortably. They At the end of July, Emilio’s landlord filed said that training is probably what saved ate at restaurants whenever they wanted, a motion to compel, meaning he wanted everyone’s lives. visited the swap meet every weekend, and the courts to stop the delay and forcibly “I was able to use that experience to treat took vacations to San Diego twice a year. remove the tenant from his property. At us,” Emilio said. “I bought an oxygen conHe and his wife, Carolina, earned nearly the compel hearing, Emilio brought his centrator, the doctor prescribed a nebulizer, $7,000 a month. paperwork again and asked Bacal to look Albuterol, I bought high-rate massagers, The COVID-19 pandemic, and the state through it. pulse oximeters.” government’s inaction, took all of that away. By this time, Emilio was back to work at He used these tools to treat his family Before the first case of novel coronaCraycroft Elementary School and expecting members and coworkers, including his virus infection was reported in Southern a paycheck soon. He just needed more time 72-year-old mother who has diabetes and Arizona, Emilio was working at Gallego to get back on his feet. other health complications. It wasn’t until Intermediate Fine Arts Magnet School in
GIVEN THE BOOT
Bacal still granted the compel order, saying it was “in the interest of justice” that the family be removed from their home. That phrase is verbatim to the executive order’s exception, which allows judges to grant evictions even if the tenant has a qualifying circumstance. Precinct 8 Constable Kristen Randall said she and other constables have seen several motions to compel as they have moved further into the eviction moratorium. Landlords in Arizona have even tried to sue Gov. Ducey for preventing them from evicting tenants. “That’s not the way the court is supposed to run,” Randall said. “We’re in a global pandemic right now, and this executive order exists for a reason and to just decide willy nilly to compel an eviction, how is that in the interest of justice?” Judge Bacal declined to comment on Emilio’s case specifically, but said she makes it a practice to listen to both parties, weigh the credibility of witnesses and give appropriate weight to all the evidence. “There are methods to challenge a judge’s decision,” she said via email. “Additionally, there are two parties to the action; the judge is not a party but a fact-finder and decision maker after careful and impartial consideration of the evidence.” The day after the court hearing, Emilio received a call from the Arizona Lawyers Guild. Their representative told him they have been monitoring eviction proceedings across the state and believe Emilio’s case ended in a wrong decision. The guild encouraged him to call the Southern Arizona Legal Aid office, which had agreed to help him fight the compel order. But free legal services like SALA have been extremely busy during the pandemic when many people are facing evictions, so their help didn’t arrive soon enough. Emilio and his family were already evicted by the time they called him back. Emilio was encouraged to file a judicial complaint and a motion to reconsider, which was denied. He filed another motion because Carolina wasn’t on the eviction paperwork. The second motion had not yet been denied when Constable Cummings showed up to change the locks. Emilio was in the middle of teaching class virtually and Carolina was taking care of their grandchildren when they had to leave their three-bedroom, two-story house behind. They took their pets and each person packed one bag of personal items. They piled into Emilio’s Saturn Ion and headed to his mother’s house.
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The children and pets stayed in her two-bedroom townhouse while Emilio and Carolina spent the night in their car in a Walmart parking lot, trying to figure out their next move. The following day, they found shelter at the Gospel Rescue Mission. Emilio was struggling to teach classes virtually while Carolina and their 15-year-old daughter were harassed by other people in the shelter. They left the next day. Then the family received their first stroke of good luck in a long time. Bonnie Bazata, Pima County’s “Ending Poverty Now” program manager, contacted Emilio and helped them access a more stable living situation. Bazata told him all the money for rental assistance comes wrapped in red tape, but she used her connections to get the family a $250 check from a local church organization. They went to the Country Inn & Suites, and that money helped them survive until Emilio’s first paycheck came in. “She’s just been a real light in the dark, because that first week was rough,” Emilio said of Bazata. “It was really rough.” During this time, Bonnie kept in contact with the Bustamontes and provided them with food to eat. The family moved to a different hotel because their first wouldn’t take a third-party check. At their new hotel, Bazata was able to get their expenses covered for the next few months. She even paid the extra fee to have pets in the hotel room. This was crucial because although Emilio is working again, he still has to pay for mov-
CLAYTOONZ By Clay Jones
ing and storage expenses and repair work on two cars. The family was forced to move all of their belongings into storage units in just a couple of days. When they returned to their house in early September, some of their expensive personal belongings were missing. After spending two full days moving boxes, Emilio suffered from dehydration and ended up in the hospital for a night. Since his return to teaching in August, Emilio has missed only one day of work. He taught classes on his phone while he packed his belongings into vehicles. At the hotel picnic table, he said he regrets trusting that the executive order would protect him and his family from losing their home. Now with an eviction on their record, finding a new house will be nearly impossible. Constable Randall said Emilio “is the picture of who should be covered by this executive order: somebody that absolutely, demonstrably was affected by Coronavirus, someone who is seeking help and he is back to teaching classes. He will be able to get caught up, everything will be fine, but he needed this delay to get back on his feet.” Rental rates continue to rise in Pima County and hardly any properties offer eviction forgiveness. Carolina said just the application fees for rental housing are financially devastating. The first place they wanted to apply for required $250 that they would never get back.
“You’re trying to hold onto your money, you’re trying to take care of it, and trying to find a place, but at the same time no one wants to take you because you have an eviction, and they keep the money if you don’t get accepted,” Carolina said. “It’s just like you’re stuck here, you’re stuck there, and it’s difficult. We’ve already applied to three places. There were two other places I wanted to apply to but the fee was too much.” Emilio and Carolina have been denied at every place they applied because of their eviction. For years, Emilio has paid the maximum 11 percent into the state’s retirement system, and he is now considering withdrawing his savings early in order to buy property for his family. “I’m really thinking about it, because then I could end this,” Emilio said. “I’d have over $200,000. I have almost a half a million, but I would lose about $180,000 in penalties.” He would have to leave his teaching job to get the money. Emilio envisions having two acres of land and setting up a couple of manufactured homes for his immediate and extended families. The land would belong to his children and grandchildren in the future. “If we can’t find a rental, and doors keep closing on us when it comes to housing, then I think that’s when he’s going to have to do it,” Carolina said. “I’ve always told him ‘Just wait, just wait’ because you never know, but that is the last option. We cannot
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keep asking for donations to pay for this hotel because we’re not the only people who need help.” Across Pima County, it is estimated that 74,000 renters may face eviction by October 2020. The Bustamontes said their hotel is typically used for sex work or selling drugs, but lately they have started to see other families move into the rooms. Emilio said he will be giving one of these families some of his own money to help them get by. “I’m lucky I have a job, there’s people that don’t,” he said. Emilio wants other renters to know that even though there’s an executive order in effect, it’s not being followed. He and many others were still evicted from their homes despite having a Coronavirus-related circumstance and documents to prove it. He was denied assistance funds several times. Sometimes the help came too late, and agencies offered to pay his rent after he was already evicted. The red tape and the slow process preventing financial assistance from being disbursed has left many renters falling through the cracks. “You might have mandates out there for protection during this crazy time that we’re in, but you’re really not protected,” Emilio said. “So prepare, don’t think you’re going to be protected, don’t be like me.” ■ Please consider donating any amount to help the Bustamonte family access a stable living situation: bit.ly/3i1HHXr
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OUT OUT WITH WITH GENDER, GENDER, IN IN WITH WITH ART ART & & MUTUAL MUTUAL AID AID By Emily Dieckman emily@tucsonlocalmedia.com
Local trans and gender-nonconforming community turns to art initiatives, community connection and grassroots fundraising during pandemic WILLBLISS KIM CASS LIM IS NO stranger to hardship. Some of their earliest memories are walking around in Korea where they spent their early childhood, carrying a trusty water gun, and hearing people refer to them as a little girl. “And I would just be like, ‘Who’s the little girl?’ looking all round,” Kim Cass Lim says. “I didn’t know they were talking to me. Like, there’s no little girl.” It wasn’t gender dysphoria, exactly. Kim Cass Lim didn’t feel trapped or uncomfortable in their own body—they just didn’t identify strongly with a gender. When I call Kim Cass Lim to talk about an art piece they contributed to a local care package project, they talk openly— almost casually—about topics ranging from their childhood traumas to their 9 p.m. bedtime and their cat. Kim Cass Lim is pangender, pansexual, transracial, transnational and a single parent. But, as is the case with most humans, it’s easier to understand Kim Cass Lim through stories rather than labels. One of their daughters’ birthdays was on Monday, so they’ve lit birthday candles, sung a song and made a wish together every day this week, making the joy and magic last as long as possible. Kim Cass Lim was 4 years old when their biological father took his own life, and their mom “lost it.” They and their two younger siblings were sent to an orphanage where they lived in Korea. At 11, they reconnected with their biological mother and stepfather. At 12, they came out as bisexual. They remember overhearing arguments between their biological and adoptive parents about “whose fault it was that [they were] so messed up.” They lost their job earlier this year when the restaurant they were working at as a manager closed. They also went through a breakup right around when COVID-19 got bad in the United States.
Through all of this—from being 4 years old and caring for their little sisters through a crisis to being 39 years old and caring through their own children during a crisis—Kim Cass Lim has turned to art as an outlet. They were even featured in a virtual artist-in-residency program at the University of Arizona’s Institute for LGBT Studies this summer. “I always, always did art,” they say. “It’s actually one of the things that got me through the orphanage. I actually have my drawings from then. It’s you know processing trauma through art is something that I find keeps me alive, sometimes.”
‘LIKE LITTLE MIRRORS’ Leaders at the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance, an organization dedicated to supporting, advocating and promoting justice for transgender, nonbinary and gender-creative people, decided to turn to art to uplift and connect the community during the pandemic. “I think that even amongst a lot of trans people growing up, you don’t really know another trans person, or at least know that you know one, so that can feel super isolating because you don’t have anyone to talk to,” says AJ Tiedeman, program manager at SAGA. “So, with space being taken away from us, that was really hard, and we had to figure out how we wanted to keep everyone in community other than online, because everyone’s been bombarded with online things.” The group came up with a monthly trans care package subscription for trans and gender-nonconforming individuals in Arizona. The packages include trans affirming art and activities, community-building information, educational pieces about trans history and information on radical ways to take action. They’ve sent packages to about 70 people so far, and plan to send out new ones
monthly for the rest of the year. They were even able to pay a few Arizona trans artists to provide art for the care packages—Kim Cass Lim and Aura Valdez. Kim Cass Lim provided digital copies of a painting called “Transformation,” in which two species of animal are fusing together beneath the primordial “drop of life.” The background is based on a traditional woven Korean pattern, which they say was at once painstaking and Zen to paint. For Kim Cass Lim, it’s deeply symbolic of what it meant to come into their gender identity. Aura Valdes is primarily a spoken word and performance artist in Tucson, but they contributed a set of poetry collage cards to the project. “I really wanted to think about my own experience as a queer person, as a trans person,” they say. “I tried to pick out poetry and collage and artwork that I felt like would… I don’t know how to describe it… connect with people that might, during this time, feel like they weren’t seeing themselves or the world, or might be feeling kind of isolated.” One of the more difficult parts of the pandemic has been realizing just how important and valuable it feels to gather in a physical space together, Valdes added. There’s something empowering about taking up a physical space, showing up in person, connecting with others, putting art out into the world. With that often unavailable during COVID-19, it can be difficult to feel seen. That, Valdes explains, is why they wanted to participate “almost selfishly” in providing art for the care packages: to make sure people feel seen and not forgotten. “It’s like little mirrors we’re shooting off into the community for each other,” they say. “The trans community has to see each other in this time, because if we don’t see each other, it’s easier to get lost.”
COLD, HARD CASH’ While art has the power to connect and uplift members of a community who are facing isolation, there are a lot of powers it doesn’t have. Tiedeman, who is queer, gender queer and trans, is acutely aware of this. When they joined several calls with other LGBTQ+ organizations during the beginning of the COVID-19 stay-athome orders and concerns, the group started brainstorming what the community might need. There were some good ideas, but Tiedeman felt it was important to mention perhaps what was most obvious: cash. “People really just need autonomy over themselves,” they say. “And, unfortunately, in the capitalist society we live in, that means having money…. Not a lot of nonprofits get down to the root of the problem. They don’t get into the root problems of classism and racism affecting people in these material ways of having no house, having no food on the table.” Tiedeman, who is Asian American, joined SAGA earlier this year as part of a structural transition for the organization: It is now staffed wholly of trans folks and parents and trans youth, and is majority Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). They’ve made some shifts in how they operate and are now racial-justice oriented, trans-young-people empowered and more nonbinary aware. This includes initiatives like starting a new trans BIPOC support group. Because most state and federal agencies aren’t gathering data about whether COVID-19 patients are LGBTQ+, it’s fuzzy exactly how much more at-risk this community is. The broader picture, however, is easy enough to piece together. Transgender people face higher rates of unemployment—they’re about 11 percentage points less likely to be working CONTINUED ON PAGE 10
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than cisgender people, according to a study published in the scientific journal the ILR Review earlier this year. According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, transgender people are more than twice as likely to live in poverty compared with the overall U.S. population (29 percent vs 14 percent). Trans BIPOCs are up to three times as likely (43 percent of Latinx, 41 percent of American Indian and 38 percent of Black respondents). “Folks are just constantly slipping through the cracks, and most of them are Black and Indigenous and transfemme,” Kim Cass Lim says. “That’s not a coincidence.” Tiedeman wanted SAGA’s position to be explicit. “We are totally behind Black Lives Matter with defunding, and eventually abolishing the police,” they say. “Because we can’t have full trans liberation without other liberations, without Black liberation, and Black liberation necessitates the abolition of awful structures in our society, including the policing system.”
‘WHATEVER IT IS THEY NEED’ Almost everyone is struggling in 2020, and, for many, it’s facilitated an increased awareness of the importance of intersectionality. If we are all struggling with feelings of anxiety and isolation during The Year of the Pandemic and the Protests and the Hurricanes and the Fires and the Relentless Political Shitstorm, how much worse must it be for people who are already marginalized for their race, their gender identity, their sexual orientation? The term “mutual aid” has become vastly more popular this year (just look at Google trends), and, while the organi-
zation theory has a multifaceted definition rooted in anarchist philosophy, at its heart, it’s simple: People looking out for other people. And, because people from marginalized backgrounds know what it’s like to need help, they often know the importance of offering it when they can. In Southern Arizona, this has taken many forms: trans folks helping poor folks helping BIPOC folks helping immigrants and so forth, without a thought to whether the help is deserved or, in the case of financial donations, will be used appropriately. Just one more example: Sophia Diaz Martinez, a transgender woman living in Tucson, started the Earline Smith Abuse Center named for her late grandmother, in April. The organization’s stated mission is to help people across Arizona recover from their addiction, but Martinez and a team of nearly two dozen volunteers work primarily to help Tucson’s homeless community. “It helps people, regardless of the fact that they are alcoholics or homeless or whatever they may be, we get them into shelters, we get them housing,” Diaz Martinez explains. “Whatever it is they need, we try our best to do.” ■ For more information on how to contribute to the SAGA COVID-19 relief fund or care packages, or to join one of the organization’s support groups, visit sagatucson.org. To donate to the Earline Smith Abuse Center, visit the organization’s Facebook page. To learn more about Aura Valdes and their art, visit auravaldes.wordpress.com To learn more about Willbliss Kim Cass Lim and their art, visit @willblissart on Instagram.
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TUCSON PRIDE FESTIVAL 2020 GOES VIRTUAL Pandemic forces annual event to find online alternatives By Jeff Gardner jeff@tucsonlocalmedia.com LAST MONTH, TUCSON PRIDE announced that their largest annual event—the Tucson Pride Festival—would take place online after much debate from the group’s Board of Directors. In place of the annual Pride Parade and Festival, Tucson Pride will organize an all-day virtual event hosted by Tucson Pride Royalty, Lucinda Holliday and Justin Deeper-Love. On Saturday, Oct. 24, Tucson Pride will feature a variety of partnerships with nonprofit organizations, performances, panels, and highlights from Tucson’s local LGBTQ history. While the festival is still in the process of restructuring due to COVID, Tucson Pride is currently establishing a schedule and accepting applications for festival participants, partners and performers. For more information, visit tucsonpride.org
Cooking for LGBT Foundation Scholarships. The Tucson LGBT Chamber of Commerce is hosting a virtual cooking class this Sunday to help raise funds for their Foundation’s University of Arizona scholarship for LGBTQ+ students. The guided online cooking class will be facilitated by Ron Wassel of Blue House Catering. Attendees will learn how to cook picadillo (either with meat or vegan), plus a side of cilantro lime cauliflower rice, and a mixed berry crisp dessert. Upon sign-up you will receive the ingredient and supply list for the class. The menu is gluten free, low carb, and includes options to make it completely vegan. The class lasts from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27. For more information, visit tucsonlgbtchamber.org LGBTQ Elder Support Group. Southern Arizona Senior Pride has been hosting a recurring online supporting group to connect local seniors during this time of isolation. The Elder Support Group meets
every other week via the Zoom to discuss the experience of aging in the LGBTQI+ community. Meeting invitations are shared via email close to the meeting date, reach out to info@soazseniorpride. org in order to be included. Outdoor/Online Yoga Benefit for the LGBT Foundation. If continued social distancing is causing you to become a little stir crazy, here’s a good opportunity to unwind and support local causes at the same time. The Tucson LGBT Chamber of Commerce is hosting an inclusive yoga benefit that you can participate in either from your own home, or at Himmel Park! David Kleinman of Cat in Tree Yoga will be teaching and Caritas Center for Healing will be virtually hosting. All proceeds help fund the Chamber’s scholarship initiative for the University of Arizona LGBTQ students. 8 to 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 10. $5 suggested donation. For more information, visit tucsonlgbtchamber.org
Southern Arizona Senior Pride is Zooming along. Support Groups, Speakers, Book Club, End of Life Planning – all on-line. Contact us to receive an invite.
Community Cares Program continues to visit homebound people by telephone. Visit our website, Facebook page and You Tube channel for fun and information!
520-312-8923 • info@soazseniorpride.org • soazseniorpride.org •
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Turnabout for TIHAN. The Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network is hosting a virtual party to support programs and services for local living with HIV. This annual benefit show includes a combination of drag, dance, burlesque and music. While last year’s 23rd annual event gathered a crowd of more than 400, the space is virtually limitless this year, as the entire variety show is taking place online. While the show is free, donations are encouraged. Check their Facebook page or email scott@tihan.org for a link to watch the show. 6 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1. ■
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By Austin Counts austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com Sonoran Restaurant Week Cometh Sonoran Restaurant Week is back next month. The 10-day celebration of the best cuisine Southern Arizona has to offer features a three-course prix-fixe experience at one of more than 30 local restaurants to choose from, including numerous City of Gastronomy-certified eateries. The fun begins Oct. 2 through Oct. 11 and will set you back between $25 to $35 per three-course meal. Proceeds help support the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. More information to come in next week’s Tucson Weekly.
COURTESY PHOTO
READY TO REOPEN
Environmental Health Specialist Cesia Estrada said. “Upon completing the La Cocina Rebrands as LaCo assessment, we also post them on our La Cocina is rebranding as LaCo, a shortened verDowntown Tucson’s restaurant and hospitality community is “Ready For You” certified, website as a Ready For You business and sion already used by the restaurant’s customers they receive promotional materials they revamped for outdoor seating and reopening to the community by next weekend. and employees, which has now transformed into can use on their social media sites to let the acronym, Love and Community, according to the the public know they’re in compliance.” By Austin Counts rigorous cleaning and sanitizing schedrestaurant’s owner, Jo Schneider. She said she has There are currently more than 700 ules throughout the establishment and Austin@tucsonlocalmedia.com been wanting to change her restaurant’s name since businesses in Pima County certified reduced their outside patio occupancy to purchasing it 10 years ago, but didn’t feel comfortable Ready For You by the health department, no more than 125 people. However, Club AFTER NEARLY SEVEN MONTHS doing so. Now that the business had been closed according to program coordinator NichCongress will remain closed and the of pandemic restrictions, downtown throughout the pandemic, Schneider said it’s time olas Agar. hotel does not have a reopening timeline restaurateurs are seeing the proverbial to make the change in name and scale back her Downtown Tucson Partnership CEO at this time, said Shepard. light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel menu. “I feel like in some ways I’m opening a new Kathleen Erikson said she has been work“Our capacity is set and we’ll make and are gearing up to reopen on Thursrestaurant. LaCo is tentatively scheduled to reopen on sure it stays true everyday,” Shepard said. ing tirelessly to make sure her communiday, Oct. 1. Establishments like Hotel Oct.15,” Schneider said. “We don’t want to have the place flooded ty of more than 150 downtown businessCongress have used the downtime as es are in compliance and ready to reopen Cup Cafe Gets Vintage with more people than we feel comfortan opportunity to rethink how they will by the Oct.1 deadline. The partnership With New Menu conduct business in the future as corona- able with.” When Hotel Congress reopens to the public on also purchased more than 200 banners to The downtown reopening endeavor virus lingers on. Thursday, Oct. 1, the Cup Cafe’s menu may look quite promote the reopening and hundreds of is due to a joint eff ort by Pima County “We’re bursting with anticipation to different to its returning customers—unless they were posters featuring a QR Code that when Health Department, Downtown Meropen our doors to our community. This hanging out at the establishment around the time of is the second time in the history of Hotel chants Association and Downtown Tuc- scanned will give restaurant-goers a list Pearl Harbor. The Cup Cafe’s new menu is a replica son Partnership helping area businesses of Ready For You Restaurants in the area, Congress that we have had to shut our of a recently discovered 1941 menu from the hotel’s said Erikson. become certified with the county health doors,” Hotel Congress marketing and former coffee shop, said the hotel’s marketing direc“We want all of our businesses to open events manager Dalice Shepard said. “For department’s Ready For You program. tor, Dalice Shepard. The menu will also combine their on the same date so when people come The program makes sure restaurants, us, the work that we have been doing breakfast, lunch and dinner options and feature a few downtown, they know their favorite gyms, pools and attractions are in comover the past couple of months is really new items—like hemp tamales and vegan tacos. In restaurant is going to be open,” Erikson pliance with the county’s May 21 procaddition, all menu items will be available to order day about making sure when we reopen these said. “We want our customers to know lamation setting minimum COVID-19 doors, we’re putting our best foot forward and night. The restaurant has changed its operating when they go into one of these businessprotective measures. so they don’t shut again.” hours, however. They will be open serving breakfast es, they’re not only meeting all of the “When establishments adhere to all The historic hub of downtown Tucand lunch from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. all week long, but will CDC guidelines, but also the Pima Counthe measures, they are eligible to receive son has reset their dining room in the only have dinner service Thursday through Saturday ty Health guidelines so they can feel safe the Ready For You emblem for their Cup Cafe to accommodate for social from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. going in.” door,” Pima County Health Department distancing measures, implemented
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Erikson also said free COVID-19 testing is available to downtown employees through the health department during the first week of October and will continue as needed. Downtown Tucson Partnership and Pima County are also working to help downtown restaurants with two grant programs—The Outdoor Cafe Grant gives $5,000 to qualifying businesses to extend their dining rooms outside, and the Downtown Rebound Grant awards $2,000 to qualifying businesses to mitigate costs associated with COVID-19 related purchases, like PPE for employees. The Outdoor Cafe Grant was allocated $105,000 and the Downtown Rebound Grant received $50,000 to be distributed to the local business community. Funding for both programs come from the federal CARES Act, said Erikson. “With the help of the Pima County Health Department, we’re providing a safe atmosphere for people to return to downtown in addition to a number of new outdoor cafes which should be up and running by the first week of October,” Erikson said. “It’s a win-win situation, because not only does it provide social distancing, it provides an open-air
environment which is much safer in these conditions.” To date, 27 downtown businesses have been recipients of the nearly exhausted Outdoor Cafe Grant. However, the Downtown Rebound Grant is still flush with dollars to help downtown business owners update their dining rooms to be in compliance with the Ready For You program, according to Erikson. Both programs are set to end on Oct. 15. The joint effort is just a start, according to Erickson. Pima County is poised to reproduce these two grant programs throughout various business districts in the Old Pueblo in an effort to help revitalize and stimulate commerce, she said. Fourth Avenue is scheduled to be the next community helped, according to Erikson. “Pima County intentionally started with the Downtown Tucson Partnership with the intent of replicating this program,” Erikson said. “We are thrilled to be the first and we’re equally thrilled to work with the Fourth Avenue business district to help implement these grant dollars. We want to have cohesive branding throughout Fourth Avenue and downtown.” ■
Kingfisher Is Back One of the Old Pueblo’s best places to get seafood is back with limited seating and hours. Kingfisher reopened last month for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday between 11 a.m. through 10 p.m. (lunch menu ends at 4 p.m.). Reservations are required to dine-in and masks are mandatory when entering and moving around the restaurant. Kingfisher is also offering curb-side pick-up from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. while open. Sentinel Peak Brewing Rebrands After a year of planning and development, the firefighter-owned Sentinel Peak Brewing Company recently rebranded as Firetruck Brewing Company to help
“For years, people would walk into our midtown location and see our fire truck mural on the wall,” Carter said. “They would always ask, ‘What’s with the fire truck?’ This ties who we are into the brand a little better.” Carter also said he thought rebranding would help the company build a better identity should they make the move to regional and national distribution. While the majority of the rebranding process was straightforward, said Carter, trying to get new signage, merchandise and tap handles proved challenging. “There’s been ordering issues due to backstock and the nature of 2020. Nothing came in on time,” Carter said. “We’re piecing everything together in the last
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duction, making beats on FL Studio and trying out more instruments. Alongside finishing up his PhD in neuroscience, Wiegand spent much of the recent quarantine producing music. According to Wiegand, his interest in neuroscience, in many ways, stemmed from his background in music. He explained that music has influenced his understanding of neuroscience and neuroscience has influenced his understanding of music. “The oscillations of the brain, that’s COURTESY PHOTO what my PhD was in, mostly oscillations of memory — a lot of those oscillations have really similar features to music,” Wiegand said. While Wiegand worked on the beats Two Tucson transplants release a funky for Cheese and the Wiz, Rooster wrote the mashup of urban soul majority of the lyrics. He says the lyrics are based off of real moments that both himself and Wiegand experienced. By Quinn McVeigh “I take a moment, I take a feeling and I tucsonweekly@tucsonlocalmedia.com take a catchphrase and I grow off of that,” Rooster said. TUCSON ARTIST CHESTHER From a young age, Rooster was exposed Rooster calls his lively mixture of R&B, rap, to music by his father, a jazz musician who alternative, jazz and electronica “urban identified on stage as “Chocolate Chuck.” soul.” This exposure, along with his own exploraRooster has teamed up with Jean-Paul tion into gospel and hip-hop music, providWiegand, also known as “The Overshaded him with a broad musical perspective. ow,” to drop a new album, Cheese and the Wiegand says the goal of Cheese and Wiz, which is loaded with diverse sounds The Wiz is to escape the bounds of any and lyrical authenticity. single genre. He tends to focus more on Rooster, 33, and Wiegand, 31, recently capturing feelings than adhering to the began collaborating on music after they conventions of any certain genre. became neighbors and good friends in “One of my goals for my music is for Tucson. Rooster made his way to Tucson somebody to listen to it and ask you know, two years ago from Portland with his wife and three children and currently works as a ‘What genre is this?’ I’m actually one of those people who, when people say ‘What barber while also making music. Wiegand moved to Tucson from Massa- do you listen to?’ it’s literally everything,” chuets to pursue a PhD in neuroscience at Wiegand said. “I range from banjo music, to country, to EDM, to death metal and so the University of Arizona. Over time, the whenever I jump onto a track, I try to wipe two bonded over their dogs interacting with each other and eventually discovered all conceptions of that out.” Wiegand and Rooster both say they that they held very similar music tastes. pursue music as a form of therapy. For Those music tastes spread over the 10 Wiegand, music is helpful in regard to tracks of Cheese and the Wiz, released taking control of negative moments in life this summer and currently available on Spotify and Apple Music. While the album and putting them in the past. “When you’re in it, it’s hard to have kind contains modern production and hip-hop of that overarching view of it, you’re kind delivery, it balances those with more timeof wrapped up in the emotions and this less themes on tracks like “Babylon” and allowed me to kind of encapsulate those “Ikkkarus.” emotions and really, move past them,” Wiegand’s musical journey began in high school when he picked up the electric Wiegand said. According to Rooster, the two have more bass. After learning the bass, he dedicated much of his time to creating as much mu- albums coming up in the near future. The sic as he could and released his first album songs to be expected in these albums will have snippets of EDM, funk, hip hop and from his bedroom at 17 years old. Recently, Wiegand began to expand his more, but as Wiegand explained, it’s all about the feeling. ■ musical tastes and experiment with pro-
MUSIC
CHEESE MIX
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Medical Marijuana
HIGH TIMES
Medical marijuana sales are booming By David Abbott david@tucsonlocalmedia.com ARIZONA’S CANNABIS INDUSTRY
has enjoyed a healthy boost since the COVID pandemic took hold in March, with sales hitting all-time highs two months in a row. Thanks to the “essential business” designation dispensaries enjoyed at the outset of the shutdown, the Arizona cannabis industry has not been adversely affected like other types of businesses in the face of shelter-in-place and uncertainties about the future, both economically and politically. “Dispensary sales are up significantly
for the period of March to the present and they have largely done a great job managing the increase in business,” said Aari Ruben, owner of Bloom Dispensary in Tucson. “We’ve done it while maintaining social distancing measures and through a variety of strategies.” With COVID protocols firmly in place, Arizona dispensaries have managed to provide medicine to patients while maintaining a supply chain that can be difficult during the best of times, with increased risks because of the threat of exposure to the virus. “The overall market had supply chain issues,” Ruben said. “At Desert Bloom, our inventory levels are stable.” According to monthly reports released by the Arizona Department of Health Services, which oversees the state’s MMJ program, statewide sales of cannabis for the month of August reached a total of
18,516 pounds of various forms of marijuana from leaf to edibles. That comes after July saw an explosion totaling 18,647 pounds sold. Those numbers are about 1,500 pounds more than the month of March, which weighed in at 17,094 pounds, and nearly a ton and a half more than January, at 15,302 pounds. The numbers also dwarf sales from a year ago, when in August 2019 statewide sales reached 14,745 pounds after 13,983 in July. Year-to-date sales through August 2020 were 136,493 pounds, compared to 105,241 in 2019. Downtown Dispensary owner Moe Asnani said his increase in sales can be attributed to an increase in the number of patients with certifications and in part because of the new electronic card system that started in December 2019. Additionally, certificates are now valid for two years and the wait for cards to be mailed has been eliminated, so patients can use their cards right away. “Sales are increasing and to some degree, it’s an increase in the number of patients,” he said. “[During the pandemic] it’s important to them. There is a lot of depression and pharmaceutical use has
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gone up, so it’s a good alternative.” As to the essential business designation, Asnani said the state had no choice but to keep dispensaries open. “Ducey had no authority to shut us down,” he said. “The law says dispensaries must stay open. They are the same as a pharmacy.” Asnani added that the economic performance of the MMJ industry is an example of what could be possible if the plant was legalized both on a state and federal level. “We’ve discovered that our economy is built on a soft foundation,” he said. “When cannabis is legal it can be a strong form of economic activity.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
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BIDEN-HARRIS TICKET VOWS TO LEGALIZE WEED LAST WEEK IN THIS SPACE, The Weekly’s Cannabis 520 columnist reported on the federal Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act that was set to go before the House of Representatives for a vote that would have sent the bill to a Republican-controlled Senate, where it would have faced certain failure. As these things happen, on the date of publication House Democrats announced they were pulling the vote until after the November elections. Hopefully, for the sake of American citizens who would like to enjoy cannabis without a hassle—and the survival of our democracy—the Senate will change hands and we can start to fix the damage inflicted on the American people through decades of spending in the War on Drugs. Southern Arizona NORML director Mike Robinette was not surprised by the delay, yet remains hopeful that the efforts of everyone involved in the creation
NORML’s Mike Robinette
of MORE will eventually result in a new direction for federal pot laws. “While we are extremely disappointed in the delay of a floor vote on the MORE Act, we take solace in the fact that the vote should still come up on the floor in November. Southern Arizona NORML is incredibly proud of the work done by national NORML and Political Director Justin Strekal in getting 25 percent of the house to co-sponsor the MORE Act,” Robinette wrote in a recent email. “This delay does nothing to ameliorate the dichotomy of federal prohibition and
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more liberalized state marijuana laws and postpones justice reforms for those people who have been disproportionately affected by the drug war and draconian marijuana laws. We remain confident that we will see the floor vote to fruition in November.” As of Monday, Sept. 21, there were 113 co-sponsors in the House, including one Republican, Matt Gaetz of Florida. Three Arizona Democrats, Ruben Gallego, Raul Grijalva and Ann Kirkpatrick, are among those signed on to the bill. On the Senate side, vice-presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris, who co-sponsored MORE on the Senate side, has strongly advocated for “decriminalization and engagement,” stating it would be part of the Biden-Harris agenda should they be elected. “Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will decriminalize the use of marijuana and automatically expunge all marijuana-use convictions, and end incarceration for drug use alone,” Harris said in a recent town hall on ABC television. “This is no time, from our collective perspective, for half-steppin’.”
SURVEY SAYS… A RECENT POLL SHOWS THAT unless turnout is low this year, voters are likely to support Prop 207, the Smart and Safe Arizona bill legalizing weed in the state. The Monmouth University poll of 420 registered voters (margin of error +/- 4.8 percentage points), conducted Sept. 11-15, indicated that among registered voters, 51 percent indicated they would
vote in favor of legalization, while 41 would vote against it with a normal voter turnout. The margin would shrink to 49 percent in favor and 43 percent against in a high-turnout election, which this one promises to be. The gap completely disappears in a low turnout scenario to a 47-47 percent pick ’em. Prop 205, the 2016 attempt at legalization, failed by a vote of 48.7 percent to 51.3 percent. The political party breakdown in support for 207 comes from 67 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents, but just 32 percent Republican. Arizonans for Health and Public Safety, the political committee opposed to Prop 207, said the poll shows voters are swinging toward rejecting the initiative. “These poll results and extensive leadership opposition indicate Arizona voters can see past the fancy title and slick marketing to the consequences of such a lengthy and self-serving initiative written by marijuana stakeholders,” stated Lisa James, chair of Arizonans for Health and Public Safety in a press release. Other polls had shown strong support for the initiative. A May poll by Phoenix political consulting firm HighGround showed that roughly two-thirds of those surveyed were leaning toward voting yes on Prop 207, while only one out of four voters were opposed. Even among Republican voters, 56 percent supported the proposition while 36 percent were opposed. Self-described “very conservative” voters split evenly, with roughly 48 percent in support and 48 percent opposed. ■
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
By Rob Brezsny. Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s EXPANDED WEEKLY HOROSCOPE 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 $1.99 per minute. 18 and over. Touchtone phone required.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “It takes a lot of courage to be the same person on the outside that you are on the inside.” Author Barbara De Angelis made that observation. I offer it up to you as a fun challenge. During the coming weeks, you may be strongly tempted to be different on the outside than you are on the inside. On the other hand, you’ll have the necessary insight and valor to remain unified. In fact, you may ultimately create more congruence between your inside and outside than you have in a long time. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.” Fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin made that observation, and now I’m conveying it to you just in time for the season when you’ll need it most. Please note that I am not predicting you’ll be devoured by dragons from within. In offering you this oracle, my hope is that you will: 1. acknowledge the existence of metaphorical dragons; 2. locate where they hang out in your inner realms; 3. study them and get to know them better; 4. devise a strategy for dealing with them safely. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “Don’t let them tame you,” advised flamboyant Gemini dancer Isadora Duncan. Who did she mean by “them”? The mainstream critics, who might have wished she cultivated a less maverick style? Her managers and handlers, who may have wanted her to tone herself down so she could earn maximum amounts of money? Her friends, who cringed when she did things like dancing on a table wearing an evening dress at a party? In accordance with astrological omens, Gemini, I invite you to take a survey of what influences might wish you were more docile, mild, or manageable. And then meditate on how you could consistently express the healthiest kind of wildness.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the Yoruba religion of Ifà, the English word “heart” has two different meanings and words. So says Yoruba priest Awó Falokun Fatunmbi. The first heart is the organ that pumps blood through our bodies. It’s called okàn. Within the okàn is the second heart: a power center that regulates the flow of emotions. It’s called ègbè. I believe your ègbè will be exceptionally strong and clear and generous in the coming weeks, Cancerian. Your capacity to feel deeply and truly will be a gift to all those with whom you share it. It will also have the potential to enhance your appreciation for your own mysterious life. Wield your ègbè with glee and panache!
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Seventy-nine-year-old Libran poet Robert Pinsky has had a triumphant life. He has published 19 books, including his own poems and essays, as well as translations of Italian and Polish poetry. For four years he served as the United States Poet Laureate. To what factors does he attribute his success? Here’s one: “Whatever makes a child want to glue macaroni on a paper has always been strong in me,” he testifies. He’s referring to the primitive arts-and-crafts projects he enjoyed while growing up. In accordance with astrological omens, I encourage you, too, to get in touch and commune with the primal roots of the things you love to do. Reconnect with the original expressions of your passion for life.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Ancient Greek philosopher Plato observed, “Do not train children to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” The same principle applies to all of us adults who are committed to the goal of lifelong learning. And according to my astrological analysis, it will be especially useful for you Leos to keep in mind during the coming weeks. It’s time to energize your education! And here’s the best way to gather the new teachings that are important for you to know: Follow what amuses your mind.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point from which to view the world,” wrote occultist Aleister Crowley. Author Gore Vidal agreed, saying, “Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of life is the correct one, it is absolutely impossible for him to know if someone else’s is the wrong one.” All of us can perpetually benefit from this counsel. And it will be especially healthy for you to heed during the next four weeks. Humility will be a superpower. Blessings will flow your way if you don’t need to be right all the time. As you refrain from regarding your own opinions as God’s holy decrees, you will generate good fortune for yourself.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Christian author Frederick Buechner writes, “We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, and I believe that to love ourselves means to extend to those various selves that we have been along the way the same degree of compassion and concern that we would extend to anyone else.” Let’s make his thought your keynote for the next two weeks. Now is an excellent time to take a journey through your past to visit all the other people you have been. As you do attend to this poignant work, be generous with each of your old selves. Forgive them for their errors and praise their beauty. Tell them how much
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “It’s a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you’ve been to all the places you don’t need to be.” Author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote that. I’m passing it on to you because I suspect you now possess the power to claim this rare gift. In the coming days, you don’t have to engage in endless evaluations of the numerous possibilities. You don’t have to risk falling victim to overthinking. Your clear, strong gut hunches will tell you exactly where you need to be and how to get there.
SAVAGE LOVE MISSED CONNECTIONS
By Dan Savage, mail@savagelove.net
Married guy here. I’m 33, the wife is 31. Our fifth anniversary is next month but we’ve been together for almost eight years. We’ve recently both come out to each other as bi. She tried to tell me a long time ago whereas I came to the realization only recently. We’re both interested in new sexual encounters and this weekend we met up with a male escort. It was my first sexual experience with a man and the first sexual encounter between my wife and another man in eight years… and we found it lacking. It was too short, and too impersonal. Is this how it usually goes with escorts? Should we have been more upfront with our
you love them. Thank them for how they have made possible the life you’re living now.
interests ahead of time? We don’t want to keep spending the money if we’re not getting the experience we want. We need to stay fairly discreet for most of these encounters due to our careers. Appreciate any input. —Basking In Confusion Over Underwhelming, Pitifully Lackluster Experience P.S. A shoutout to my amazing wife for going from learning I’m bi to fucking another dude with me three months later! Some sex workers love their jobs, some don’t; some sex workers are good at their jobs, some aren’t. Sometimes a sex
worker doesn’t click with a particular client for some ephemeral, hard-to-define reason; sometimes a client gives off a bad vibe—or a bad odor—and the sex worker bails or hurries things along not because they’re a shitty sex worker, BICOUPLE, but because their client is shitty or smells shitty. But here’s the thing, BICOUPLE: no sex worker can read minds. You tell me you’re wondering if you should’ve been “more upfront with [your] interests ahead of time.” If you left something important out when you made the booking, well, that could’ve been the problem. No sex worker likes having things sprung on them. A sex worker who doesn’t do kink is going to feel very uncomfortable if there’s a bunch of bondage gear laid out when they arrive; even a sex
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Novelist Henry Miller was in many ways a quintessential Capricorn. He described himself as being “in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.” Feelings like those are why your astrological symbol is the mountain goat that’s always climbing higher, questing toward the next pinnacle. At your best, you’re determined to keep striving for the brightest, the strongest, the truest. Sometimes you overdo this admirable imperative, but mostly it’s a beautiful quality. You are hereby authorized to express it with maximum wisdom and eagerness in the coming weeks. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Go catch a falling star,” wrote poet John Donne (1572–1631) in his poem “Song.” “Tell me who cleft the Devil’s foot,” he went on to say. “Teach me to hear the mermaids singing.” He wasn’t being literal, but rather was indulging in poetic fancy to stretch his readers’ imaginations. I’m offering you the spirit of Donne’s poem, Aquarius, because you’re ripe to transcend your limited notions about what’s plausible and implausible. If you allow yourself to get extravagant and unruly in your fantasies, you may crack through shrunken expectations and break into a spacious realm of novel possibilities. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I don’t suggest you indulge daringly in sensual pleasures, cathartic exchanges of energy, and intoxicating pursuits of relief and release. The pandemic mandates us to be cautious about engaging in unmitigated bliss— even though the astrological omens suggest that if now were a normal time, such activities would be well worth focusing on. How can you resolve this dilemma? Possibilities: 1. Experiment zestfully with your live-in steady or spouse. 2. Get a COVID19 test with a potential playmate, and if you both test negative, celebrate boisterously. 2. Round up a dazzler with whom you can generate rapture via Zoom. 3. Fantasize about delightfully gracious debauchery. 4. Go solo. ■ Homework: In your fantasy, create an alternate version of yourself with a different name and a different life. FreeWillAstrology.com
worker who does kink is going to feel uncomfortable if kink wasn’t discussed in advance. Similarly, BICOUPLE, if you didn’t explain to your sex worker that there were two of you, your sex worker might’ve felt uncomfortable when they arrived. If you weren’t clear about your wants and your sex worker didn’t ask or you couldn’t articulate them after he asked, you put your sex worker in the position of having to guess. And your sex worker may have guessed wrong—some clients prefer sex that’s athletic, impersonal, or aggressive. And if your sex worker had a bad experience with a husband who got upset when his wife seemed a little too into him, he may have erred on the side of maintaining some emotional distance even as you got physically close.
SEPT. 24, 2020
If what you wanted—if what you were most interested in—was a more intimate and connected experience, then you weren’t just expecting sexual labor from the sex worker you hired, BICOUPLE, but his emotional labor too. While affection and intimacy can certainly be faked, we don’t typically expect a strong emotional connection when we’re hooking up with a stranger. Being sexually intimate can build that connection, BICOUPLE, but it can take time and a few meetings to get there. To avoid winding up in bed with another sex worker you don’t click with, I would advise you to take the time—and spend the money— to make a real connection. By which I mean: Go on a date. Find a sex worker you’re interested in and make a date—for dinner. Pay them for their time, pay for their meal, and if you click, BICOUPLE, if you feel like you could connect, book them for a sex date. Straight male here, divorced four years ago, just entering my 50s. I recently expanded my dating app parameters to see everyone in my area. I wanted to check out the competition and possibly give myself a little ego boost. I have a gay male friend who is in his 40s. Mr. 40s has a boyfriend of two years who is in his 20s. They are great together—they vacation together, they quarantined together, Mr. 20s and Mr. 40s worked on redecorating a home together, etc. The problem is I spotted Mr. 40s on several dating apps. It would have been perfectly acceptable for him to say, “none of your business,” when I asked him why. Instead he told me they were old profiles, implying they pre-dated Mr. 20s. He lists pets on his profiles that he adopted a few months ago. I have a sore spot about this behavior because my ex-wife started “auditioning” my replacement before we filed divorce papers. I really don’t like being lied to. What do
I do? Confront Mr. 40s? Mind my own business and hope Mr. 40s doesn’t crush Mr. 20s by cheating? Help! —Fumbled Into Fraught Terrain Involving Expanded Search Maybe Mr. 40s and Mr. 20s have an open relationship. Maybe they have a closed relationship but both regard flirting on dating apps as harmless. Maybe Mr. 40s was charged with finding a very special guest star for a threesome. Or maybe Mr. 40s has profiles on dating apps for the exact same reason you expanded the parameters on your profiles, FIFTIES: for the ego boost. If it was any of the above—if there was an innocent explanation—why did Mr. 40s go with, “Those were old profiles,” instead of, “We sometimes have threesomes”? Well, in my experience, FIFTIES, some straight people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the kind of non-monogamy practiced by most gay male couples. Hell, some closed-minded gay people have a hard time with it. I can imagine a scenario where Mr. 40s was honest with people in the past and got a bad reaction and consequently no longer feels safe—much less obligated—to share the details of his sex life with straight or gay friends. So he gave you the answer a lot of straight people and some gay people prefer to hear when they ask pointed questions of partnered friends they assumed to be monogamous: “Of course I’m not sleeping around! Those were old profiles! My monogamous boyfriend would never want me to shove my monogamous dick down his throat while some other dude non-monogamously rearranges his guts! Heavens! We’re far too busy redecorating our lovely home to arrange threesomes! Which we’re totally not interested in having!” Look, FIFTIES, you put a question
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to Mr. 40s that he wasn’t obligated to answer at all, much less answer truthfully. So what do you do now? What you should’ve done when you first stumbled over Mr. 40s’ dating profiles: You do nothing. You drop it. The issue you shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place? You don’t bring it up again. Even if Mr. 40s is auditioning replacements for Mr. 20s—even if he lied to you for a selfish, self-serving reason—it’s still none of your business. My boyfriend and I first heard the terms “sexual monogamy” and “social monogamy” on your podcast. They describe us: not sexually monogamous, but we present that way socially and most people in our lives assume we are. Including my mother. We’re both from very Republican families that struggled to accept us. My attitude is that if my brothers don’t have to tell our parents about their kinks, I don’t have to tell them about my threesomes. (Both of my older brothers have confided in me about their kinks, which I wish that hadn’t.) But it got back to me via my sister that my Trump-wor-
JEN SORENSEN
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shipping, Obama-despising mother only accepts me and my boyfriend because we are “good” gays. Good because we’re monogamous, like good straight people, and not promiscuous, like bad gay people. Now I feel like I should say something. But what? —They Really Underestimate My Proclivities “Good people can be ‘promiscuous,’ Mom, and awful people can be monogamous. Take Donald Trump. That asshole has been married three times and cheated on every one of his wives. Barack Obama, whom you despise, has been married once and has never been caught cheating. Which means Obama either doesn’t cheat or, like everything else he’s ever done, from being someone’s husband to being our president, he’s better at it than Donald Trump.” ■ mail@savagelove.net. Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage On the Savage Lovecast, learn a thing or two from power sub Lina Dune. www. savagelovecast.com
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