The April 2022 issue of Utah Stories

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APRIL 2022

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UTAH STORIES MAGAZINE

6 Utah Stories Contributors 12 Ancient Wisdom

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VOLUME 11 ISSUE 22

24 Electric Porsche Plug-in Porsche goes the distance

38 Lassonde Studios is a Playground for Student Innovation

Need a eureka moment? Try a Vision Quest

16 Ketamine Treatment for Depression The ketamine cure

New studio invests in

18 Mobile Cannabis

students

40 Lisa Forman of Legends Pub & Grill

Cannabis delivery is rolling along

20 Girls Wrestling Boys High School Wrestling Challenges

Hard work creates Legends

22 San Rafael Secrets: Temple Mountain Town Site

44 Pantages Theatre

Emery County uranium

history

Preserving theatrical

SPOTLIGHT 26 Moab

30 Sugar House

Affordable Housing

34 Food

Cameron Wellness

Alternative Approaches

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Moab, Utah

WE POST STORIES AND PHOTOS ALL THE TIME. FOLLOW US @UTAHSTORIES PUBLISHER/EDITOR

Fletcher Marchant

WRITERS

Al Sacharov

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jennifer Bryant

Sona Schmidt-Harris

Dung Hoang

David E. Jensen

Ted Scheffler

COPY EDITORS

Mike Jones

Connie Lewis

Connie Lewis

David Jensen

COVER

Braden Latimer

Richard Markosian

Al Sacharov

Adam Hynes

SALES & ACCOUNTS Golda Hukic-Markosian

Dan Potts

Amiee Maxwell

Goblin Valley

GRAPHIC DESIGN Anna Lythgoe

John Taylor

Cathy McKitrick

Richard Markosian PUBLISHER’S ASSISTANT

DIGITAL PUBLISHER & MARKETING & EVENTS Golda Hukic-Markosian

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Dan Potts

ONLINE PREVIEW

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Find new dining experiences by following Ted Scheffler. Explore Grand America’s Laurel Brasserie and High West Distillery’s Nelson Cottage.

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Are there leprechauns in Utah? Find out in Danny’s Stewart article.

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The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art is hosting an exhibit called Shattering the Pictures in Our Heads: Challenging the Myths About Native Americans. It is one of five new exhibits. You can read about the reopening in Guy Wheatley’s article.

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Continuing our series on the Salt Lake homeless situation, Richard Markosian writes; Homeless Advocate Claims SLC Mayor Has a Conflict of Interest in Handling Homeless Situation.

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BEHIND THE STORIES Jennifer Bryant

Jennifer Bryant is a Utah native and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a concentration in Substance Use Disorder Counseling.

She is currently a practicing clinician, working in her internship for her master's degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Jennifer is passionate about speaking her truth. She researches and incorporates methods of treatment for her clients and for anyone who is searching for some added support and treatment. She has survived her own journey through trauma and healing and love living the life she has created for herself now! Jennifer plans to continue her education and obtain her PhD in the future. She will continue researching and advocating for mental health treatments.

Jennifer loves animals of all kinds and currently plays “mother” to four cats that she absolutely adores! She believes that animals are one of the best forms of treatment available for mental health! She volunteers for an amazing rescue, Whiskers. She also has shelters and a feeding station on her property for a group of community cats. She has worked with Best Friends Animal Society to help trap, sterilize, and release community cats to help keep the population manageable.

Sona Schmidt-Harris

Though Sona Schmidt-Harris spent most of her childhood outside of Utah, and five years in the Big Apple, she still considers Utah home. She feels “naked” if the land is flat and uninterrupted by edifices, whether human or nature made.

She has written many profiles of artists in the local Holladay Journal and Utah Life magazine. In addition to her career as a paralegal, she was also a journalist at the Intermountain Commercial Record and Salt Lake Times, where she wrote legal-related articles. Her parents were thrilled when their ethereal daughter finally did something practical to earn a living.

A five-time Society of Professional Journalists winner, she has yet to win first place.

Sona loves to travel and recently spent three months in Portugal where she chronicled her journey with photos and words on her website.travelsabroad.net.

In addition to her interest in journalism, Sona is also a published poet and flash fiction writer, and believes that her first “call” was to poetry; however, it was her short story “Little Alfie” which first got her published at San Miguel Elementary School after it appeared in the school district’s literary compilation, “Short and Long and Even a Song”, when she was eight.

Adam Hynes

Adam is an Oregon based nature photographer with a real passion for the natural world. Adam tries to capture places in moments so unique, they feel like another planet. Photography connects himi with the earth, and the people on it. Adam loves photography, life, and people. Bringing them together is beautiful! @livinlavidaphoto

Fletcher Marchant

Fletcher Marchant is the Layout Designer for Utah Stories,as well as a Graphic Designer on the side, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has lived in Utah his whole life. Fletcher is attending Salt Lake Community College to wrap up his degree before transferring to the University of Utah next spring.

Fletcher started doing design when he was only 15-years-old. That’s when he discovered GIMP, and he knew it was something he could turn into a career. Over the years Fletcher has developed a foundation of design that should be used as a tool by utilizing the very framework of a composition. He hopes that readers can still see him through the layouts and that they continue reading Utah Stories.

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Homeless Advocate Claims SLC Mayor Has a Conflict of Interest in Handling Homeless Situation u/TZCW Free housing doesn’t decrease housing shortages, building more housing does. Developers are not the problem. Karen and Jed are sure to let the city council know that they oppose any developments that aren’t single family detached housing.

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Ancient Wisdom How Big Pharma is preventing the massive shift in medicine and wellbeing. Also, a simple cure for depression called Vision Quest.

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oday, Big Pharma, Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol, all billion-dollar industries, are undergoing a sea-change in their market share and growth potential due to the re-emergence of ancient technologies and medicine.

This is a story that the main-stream media isn’t covering much because so much of Big Media gets so much of their money from these Big Corporations. But low and behold, we are not beholden to big corporate power, so we can fill you in on what is happening.

Mushrooms, cannabis, and potent potions such as Ayahuasca were once used by ancients to reveal the inner

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wisdom of the human psyche and help participants understand their greater purpose in life and their place in the universe. Authors such as Aldus Huxley realized that this ancient power was being neglected in our modern world back in the 1940s. Still, nearly all of these substances were banned in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries, mostly due to the ubiquitous unprofitable nature of these substances. The Hurst corporation saw that cannabis was banned as a federally controlled substance, as the widespread production of hemp threatened the paper mills William Randolph

PHOTO BY RICHARD MARKOSIAN

By Richard Markosian

Medical cannabis, delivered Free, same-day convenience

Questions? Visit www.wholesome.co or call us at (801) 695-4480

Hurst controlled for his media empire. That was in 1937, and that law has stuck, despite the fact that there is conclusive evidence of the medicinal value of cannabis in the treatment of myriad ailments including epilepsy, chronic pain, GI issues, and even asthma.

Still, the wheels of the federal government move incredibly slow. But the medical treatment picture is changing so rapidly that patients and doctors are finding loopholes to allow for these ancient remedies to regain some of their prominence. Ketamine is a substance now widely used to treat depression and anxiety. The chemical compound offers a similar experience to what is offered from psilocybin mushrooms.

While psilocybin mushrooms were banned, despite the fact they have few medical risks, Ketamine has always been legal as a popular anesthetic.

But Ketamine is an inferior treatment to psilocybin in many ways, and so underground treatments and clinics offering real psilocybin are forced to operate in the shadows.

While it’s exciting that so many patients who have suffered from “cures” that have been foisted upon us by Big Pharma and by doctors have been fraught with side-effects are finally getting phased out to some degree, it’s clear that the Big Powers don’t want to see these changes happen too rapidly.

They are the ones working in the back rooms ensuring that the competition doesn’t get a leg up on their revenue streams too soon. In the meantime, for those suffering from depression, there is a remedy that offers almost no side-effects, and is almost certain to work wonders, is less costly, and might only result in a suntan and some

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weight loss. Utah Wilderness retreats offer delinquent teens access to this cure. It’s the concept of reconnecting people with nature by spending several days in the wilderness.

The Ancient Practice of Vision Quest It turns out this tactic of returning a person to their essential nature is not new. The Native Americans called a similar practice a Vision Quest. The basis upon which a Vision Quest works to treat all sorts of disorders originates from the power we can harness by tapping into our own psyche and brain chemistry. A traditional Vision Quest might require a spiritual guide, but these parameters aren’t required to obtain a result. Mostly it requires the courage to engage with nature to a degree which is outside of our comfort zone: leave home cell phones, pack just enough water and food. Eat and drink very sparingly or attempt to fast and witness the changes that occur in your mind.

The reason this works is because when we are persistently motivated by our deeply-biologically-seated instincts and desires: hunger, thirst, stimulation, sex and sleep, we are merely acting out our most basic internal brain mechanisms, which always believe more of everything is the answer. Satisfying our ego 100% of the time will result in depression 100% of the time.

This mode of being ignores our souls and consciousness. “Man cannot live on bread alone,” said Jesus. Even my dogs get depressed when we don’t visit the mountains. Depression and anxiety are running rampant in our society today. Why? Because most of

us are completely out of contact with our true nature and our souls.

When we deny our carnal desires and engage instead in fasting, devotional prayer and renunciation, a simple exchange occurs: by sacrificing some comfort such as food and stimulation, we receive in return a greater sense of spiritual well being and an elevated consciousness. The idea of sacrifice was integral in all ancient cultures.

Sacrifice is something fundamentally lost in our modern culture today.

Some Christian still practice Lent, and some Muslims practice Ramadan, but a few days backpacking in the wilderness takes this a step further.

Trading comfort and pleasure for discomfort, and living for a few days outside closer to nature, we become better acquainted with our true spiritual essence and gain greater insight into our more meaningful purpose for living here on earth, in this particularly strange era.

It might seem counterintuitive, especially with how we have been programmed to always believe that greater comfort is always better. But indeed, through discomfort of our flesh, the temporal nature of our being moves to the forefront, and we feel better connected with our souls, God, fellow man, and the earth. Why is it that anyone who has suffered from long-term illness always feels a renewed appreciation for life? Because only through discomfort do we gain this appreciation.

Certainly, chemicals (especially natural chemicals and ancient remedies) can also offer and achieve similar results in providing an ego-diminishing spiritual awakening, but our brains are indeed chemical factories.

And our brains can produce all of the same effects found in the most popular chemical agents. Cannabis, psychedelics, and psilocybin mushrooms can induce epiphanies and provide insight into our own pain and depression, but so can fasting and long walks in the desert or in the forest, preferably alone for extended stretches.

This most ancient of all wisdom might sound too basic, too simple, and too difficult for our complex world and our modern era, but you will never know until you attempt your first Vision Quest. Try backpacking for even just a day or two or three in the San Rafael Swell, or Goblin Valley. Eat and drink sparingly and witness your depressed mind awaken in bliss and a state of awe over your surroundings.

The inhospitable desert contours, sun-and-wind polished rocks, and prickly cacti find few takers, and this is to our great benefit. The rattlesnakes, scorpions and lizards have been dramatized and characterized into being our enemies, but they want nothing to do with us. This is the place where truth and meaning are born. Where did Jesus, Moses and Buddha find their sanctuaries? It was in the inhospitable regions in the desert; we have plenty of this in Utah.

Depression is disconnection. We are disconnected from our origins. The ancients are calling us. It’s time we answer the call of the billions of humans who came before us by spending some time among them in the sand, dust and wind from whence we came, and where we will ultimately end up.

“Finding yourself” is a trite phrase.

Find unity, purpose, meaning and connection in the wilderness.

utahstories.com | 15

H E A LT H & W E L L N E S S

Ketamine For Depression

By Jennifer Bryant

A

s a clinical mental health counseling student at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions in Provo, Utah, I have been researching the benefits and risks of ketamine treatment. What I have found is that numerous people are, indeed, finding relief from their depression with the treatments. Treatments are held in clinical settings, typically with a choice of comfortable chairs and headphones.

A nurse practitioner or an anesthesiologist, sometimes both, are present during the administration of the ketamine and throughout the treatment.

There is an immediate disassociation that happens when ketamine is administered that is best explained as having an out of body experience, as if the mind and body are two separate entities. I have heard differing reports of the actual experiences that are had during this period of disassociation.

Some people have stated that they have interesting and insightful experiences and others have expressed that they have been drawn into darkness that has been frightening and negative.

Of all the people I talked to about their experiences, all but one reported a positive overall experience.

Ketamine treatment for depression is an increasingly popular option for those who suffer with the debilitating disease. This cost-effective method

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of treatment is meant to be used by those who have a history of using prescription medications, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics.

Historically, ketamine has been used as a sedative in medicine, as well as a hallucinogen in recreational use.

Because of the “relaxed” and “happy” feelings that come as a result of using ketamine, it is proving to be effective in the treatment of depression and other mental health illnesses.

The recovery process after ketamine treatment varies from person to person. Some people reported that they were back to a normal state within a matter of hours, whereas others reported that it took a matter of days to fully recover from the effects. Some clinics will offer an antinausea prior to the treatment to reduce residual side effects. Nausea was the most common after effect that was reported, as well as a feeling of being “hungover” for a period of time.

There are, however, important risks

that should be considered. First and foremost, clinics in the Salt Lake valley who are offering ketamine treatment are using intravenous, oral, and intranasal methods of administration. The only method of administration that is currently approved by the FDA for treatment of depression is intranasal.

The question then arises about how ketamine treatment clinics can legally use other methods. The answer is that ketamine, in other forms, is still legal, it just has not been proven and approved to be safe for treatment of depression by the FDA. Simply put, these ketamine treatments are experimental.

The medical and psychology sciences are working together to find an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, and other mental health illnesses.

Another important factor to consider are the effects of long-term use of ketamine. In my research I did not

find a timeline that clinics are using as a baseline for beneficial results. If used for long periods of time, ketamine can increase the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. There is also evidence that shows that ketamine has addictive qualities and used long-term may create dependencies and withdrawal symptoms can be present when use is discontinued.

All things considered, my conclusion is this: I do believe that ketamine treatments for depression can be and are effective and beneficial, however, I don’t believe it should be the first line of defense against depression, at least not until there are more studies, research, and results to rely on.

Used in combination with traditional therapeutic treatments models, there is potential for ketamine treatments to be another life-changing option for mental health treatment.

utahstories.com | 17

H E A LT H & W E L L N E S S

Mobile Cannabis Accessibility to medical cannabis just got easier

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hen The Utah State Legislature passed the initial medical cannabis legislation three years ago, they decided that there would not be cannabis dispensaries or pharmacies on every street corner as they are found ubiquitous among our neighbors in Colorado or Nevada.

Instead, Utah adopted a model that would allow courier services to be involved so that patients all over Utah could order their product and have it sent like an Amazon order. Or so they hoped.

This vision had not materialized until WholesomeCo Medical Cannabis Pharmacy in West Bountiful set up shop and about a year ago started offering home delivery to nearly every corner of Utah.

CEO and founder Chris Jeffery put it this way: “We decided to take the approach of founding and establishing our company knowing that our technology would be the key factor in success.” Jeffery says they devoted considerable engineering resources to solving the problems of logistics, supply chain consistency, as well as providing a solid and easy-to-use e-commerce site that could drive a much higher level of service in cannabis delivery in Utah.

WholesomeCo now offers statewide free delivery of medical cannabis serving 99% of rural communities in Utah with weekly deliveries.

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Jeffery knows well what goes into building a successful tech company and delivery service. He was the founder of a grocery delivery and food company in the Baltimore, Maryland area. The backend of what he is building in Utah is designed to be easily scalable and highly robust. “We already have impacted the market significantly, '' Jeffery says, adding, “Today about ten percent of all cannabis orders are made online in Utah and are delivered, WholesomeCo is handling the majority of those orders.”

WholesomeCo headquarters in West Bountiful are highly secure, with security guards maintaining the safety. The waiting area for patients offers a highly professional staff including (by law) an on-site medical cannabis pharmacist who was fielding calls by patients.

The difficulty in operating a medical cannabis pharmacy is that patients are still required to pay in cash or debit, and there is still a stigma attached to using a medicine that is a federally-banned, Schedule One controlled substance. Jeffery has believed for years that national political leaders would work to remove this blockade.

“Once the laws are changed, much more money will flow into the space, and certainly more scientific studies for treatments and strains will move forward.”

Jeffery believes this is very likely by

PHOTO BY RICHARD MARKOSIAN

By Richard Markosian

design. Big Pharma, Big Alcohol, and Big Tobacco all stand to lose significant market share as the growth of medical cannabis. Still the State of Utah has not made accessibility to medical cannabis especially difficult for low-income patients.

The biggest roadblock WholesomeCo is currently facing is the requirement of everyone who is a patient to pay $150-$200 every six months to maintain and obtain their medical cannabis recommendation card through QMPs (Qualified Medical Providers) or primary care physicians.

After the first year, only a yearly check up is required instead of every six months.

Still, this regulatory road block creates an obvious barrier that companies operating out of Nevada use to their advantage. Nevada dispensaries advertise to Utah residents and most license plates in the parking lot are from Utahns visiting their locations over the border in Mesquite and Wendover, Nevada. These are potential tax dollars and customers the Utah market

Chris Jeffery, CEO of WholesomeCo.

is losing because Utah has made it so difficult for medical cannabis patients to maintain their patient status.

WholesomeCo is quickly expanding into growing their own products with their cultivator license. They are opening a 25,000 square foot greenhouse where they will be able to harvest up to six thousand pounds of flower per year, and process that for their own gummies and product line. That will take a while, but until then, they still offer the largest selection of medical cannabis products of any medical cannabis pharmacy in the state of Utah.

utahstories.com | 19

SPORTS Brother and Sister Wrestlers on West High Team Mattie Neilsen & Ian Nielsen.

Girls Wrestling Boys Progressive wrestling goes to the mat

A

s a West High School wrestling coach, I coached female wrestlers on its mostly male teams for decades.

Early on, I concluded that there were really no concerns about mixing the sexes on the mat. Wrestling was wrestling, and all participants wanted to gain something from the toughest high school sport in America.

In my first article ever published, titled “Girls Wrestling the Boys”, I attempted to promote female wrestlers joining male teams, especially here in conservative Utah. It was published on a then-new Internet. My rationale was that if enough girls could join pri-

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marily boys’ teams, they could finally spin off to form their own all-female high school teams to compete in their own state championships. Progressive California and conservative Texas had already done so.

After graduating from West as a wrestler, I joined the Utah State University Wrestling Team for four years.

This helped fund my college education through a small athletic scholarship.

Shortly after graduating, the federal Title Nine act mandated equality between men’s and women’s sports. This devastated longtime male wrestling programs in most of America’s univer-

PHOTOS BY DAN POTTS

By Dan Potts

sities, including USU. It was far easier to simply eliminate men’s sports such as wrestling instead of adding women’s sports.

At the same time, huge sums of money coming from men’s college football and basketball were generating plenty of finances to add new sports instead of eliminating them. But there were no more scholarships available for athletes who had worked hard for many years Growing up as a truly tiny person, the smallest wrestler on USU’s wrestling team, I found that I could relate to the competitive challenges that confronted females in what had largely been a testosterone-based sport. After lettering in wrestling at USU, I started coaching high school wrestling, mostly to help those who were not naturally endowed with classic wrestling skills and body builds.

For decades I conducted a wrestling practice coined “slime practice” to promote techniques whereby any wrestler (including girls) could attain some level of success.

When I finally retired from coaching at West, I went to the ‘dark side’ and became a wrestling referee.

Several years ago I was privileged to referee what could be referred to as Utah’s first real all-female high school wrestling dual meet. Both schools, West Lake and Cyprus, had most of the weight classes filled. Both were female-coached, one by a woman whom I had coached at West High years ago.

It was a competitive dual right down to the final match! There are more allgirl teams forming in Utah, and their members will impress you with their quickness, flexibility and determina-

tion to win.

When I asked West High wrestler, Mattie Nielsen, and her female teammates what winning against a boy meant to them, they said, “it would be great!” But when I asked her brother, with whom she had wrestled most of her life, what he thought about wrestling girls, he and his male teammates all said that it was a “lose/lose” scenario. If they beat a girl, “they were only beating a girl.” If they lost to a girl, that was obviously worse because “they had been beaten by a girl.”

On the positive side, coaching girls to beat boys obviously attracts more females to a team that needs more female athletes to finally allow for separating the sexes on the practice mat.

That is why I plan to conduct a girl’s wrestling clinic titled “Girls Beating the Boys” at West High this May. This year, I refereed as many female wrestling matches as males. It will not be long before female wrestling finds its way onto university campuses to finally justify the resurgence of men’s wrestling that Title Nine had eliminated years ago.

Years ago, Jennifer Taggart came out to wrestle as a senior on the largest, most competitive team West High ever fielded. She rarely missed our grueling practices, but only scored one point wrestling boys in her final year of high school. When I asked her why on earth she had joined the wrestling team that year, she responded, “I just wanted to push myself as far as I could!” That pretty much sums up the reason any wrestler (male or female) joins any wrestling team. Anyone can participate in wrestling for their own benefit.

utahstories.com | 21

U TA H H I S T O R Y

San Rafael Secrets: Temple Mountain Town Site High-quality uranium brought Madame Curie to Emery County Marie Curie in her lab.

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By David E. Jensen

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE EMERY COUNTY ARCHIVES

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eep in the San Rafael Swell lie the lonely stone remnants of the Temple Mountain town site, a remote cluster of stone cabins where Marie Curie, aka Madame Curie, once lived for a short time.

Long before Charlie Steen struck it rich with his discovery of uranium in Moab during WWII, ushering in the age of the atomic bomb, Curie had isolated pure metal radium from uranium salts, triggering a radium boom, and subsequently, a vanadium boom in the Colorado Plateau. Vanadium, it turns out, was a vital component in the production of steel alloys for tools, warships and steel beams during WWI. Maria Slodowski Curie was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Russian Empire (now modern-day Poland), and was educated at the University of Paris. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the first person to win it twice — the first time in 1903, for discovering radioactivity, and again in 1911, for isolating pure radium.

Uranium from the Temple Mountain mines was sent to France for use in Curie’s experiments, and in one of her many trips to the US, she visited Temple Mountain, allegedly to see where such high-quality ore was coming from.

Around 1921, Marie, along with her husband Pierre, resided temporarily at Temple Mountain, which remained an active uranium mining town throughout the early 1900s. Miners used picks and shovels, and it took gallons of blood, sweat and tears to extract even a tiny amount of uranium from a ton of ore.

Curie became well-known in Emery County, and radium, “nature’s wonder

element” as it was called, turned out to be a cure for cancer by destroying diseased tissue, and later, in the development of X-rays. Radium soon found its way into a number of household products including shampoos, hair tonics, toothpastes, skin lotions and baby clothes. Because it glowed in the dark, it was also used for painting watch dials and clock faces, with workers placing tiny paint brushes between their lips to maintain a fine point.

Little was known at the time about the devastating side effects of prolonged exposure to radiation, which, in addition to curing cancer, can also cause it, and those who worked with A cabin in Emery County where Marie Curie may have stayed.

the toxic substance often suffered horrific health consequences. Curie herself died in France on July 4, 1934 of aplastic anemia, a form of leukemia, caused by the same radiation that would later save so many lives. She was 66-years-old.

Today, the town lies abandoned in the silence of the surrounding desert, framed by the imposing 6,820-foot Temple Mountain for which it is named, forgotten and ghostly amid the harsh beauty of this stark and stunning landscape.

utahstories.com | 23

I N N O V AT I O N S

Electric Porsche Current Exchange converts classic roadster to electric collectible

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he Porsche 911. A driver eases behind the wheel of this classic 1980s sports car. While shifting gears, the engine roars its approval. At the Current Exchange in Salt Lake City, it is the same clean-lined Porsche, but with an electric engine that will purr its approval.

Martin Prouty and Kyle Palmer started The Current Exchange to

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convert Porsche roadsters into electric vehicles. The two entrepreneurs have known each other since college days in Arizona. After both held stints in the corporate world, they decided to follow their passion for Porsches.

They chose the Porsche 911 because it is ideally suited for conversion.

A Tesla motor nestles into the rear engine compartment and the batteries

PHOTO BY JOHN TAYLOR

By Al Sacharov

sit in the front. But most importantly, a devoted following already exists for the car. “An electric-powered Porsche will be the next cool thing for a collector,” Kyle says.

They estimate their prototype will be road-ready this summer. The convertible’s interior will have the look and feel of the original. Porsche power will remain, and the car will have a 100 to 150 mile cruising range on a single charge. “The Porsche is meant to be driven. Most 911s have reached the lifespan of their original engines, and by converting them, they can be enjoyed well into the future. It’s the perfect car to tool around with on Sunday,” Martin says.

The vehicle will have a price tag of “150,000, well within the range of collectable cars. The two hope to convert up to 10 cars a year by 2025, obtaining originals through specialty brokers and auctions. A goal is to utilize local auto specialty shops along with the electric vehicle program at Weber State University.

The shop on Richards Street is start-up spartan. But on the wall is a surrealist picture dating back to the duo’s college days. It features a table surrounded by figures drawn as light sockets. A play on words ensued — electric current, current dreams, Current Exchange. It is indeed a picture worth a thousand words.

utahstories.com | 25

MOAB

Walnut Lane Development Affordable Housing in Moab

W

hen a mobile Park home went up for sale on Walnut Lane in Moab, it would have been a sure bet for any area developer to realize windfall profits if they flipped it into luxury condos. Instead, Moab City stepped in and decided it would be better to safeguard the park and its residents against eviction and use the site for future affordable housing.

In the past five years, mobile home parks have become a target for developers who can triple or quadruple the property values by evicting long-time, low-income residents and replacing

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them with second home owners with extra cash.

All over Utah, this trend has escalated, as we have reported previously, especially in Bountiful and Centerville. Low-income residents who have invested thousands of dollars into their double-wide trailers and yards only to end up displaced and feeling completely hopeless when they learn that Utah State law mandates that a ten-year old must be abandoned or demolished and cannot be moved to another location.

Moab residents all seem to agree that

CONCEPT ART FROM MOABCITY.ORG

By Richard Markosian

the lack of affordable housing threatens the town’s very existence. The lifeblood of the tourism economy relies on tour guides, restaurant staff, hotel staff, and service-sector employees.

The plan for Walnut Lane is to transition the property from trailer-park to a multi-use housing complex.

They plan to increase the number of housing units from 37 to 80, which will include a mix of housing types including apartments and duplexes, built exclusively for low-income residents.

The plan is also in phases so that none of the current residents at the site will be displaced.

The City is working with Architectural Squared to design the units to integrate well with the neighborhood.

The plan also includes the integration of sidewalks, an internal loop offering trees and landscaping, plenty of bike parking, storage lockers, and an outdoor gathering area.

Moab still has many trailer park areas which are some of the last affordable sites in the city. Moab also has many farms and open land on the far-south end of town. Why not build there? The difficulty in developing more of these sites is providing additional infrastructure, mainly water and sewage. Moab has invested heavily in a new water-treatment facility that is 90% more efficient and effective than its old system, using far less electricity and making all of the town’s wastewater reusable. But there is resistance to developing more farmland and open space. Long-time locals do not want to see zoning law changes or more density. They believe that a densely-packed town doesn’t fit with the two national parks and the surrounding wilderness,

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but zoning changes and in-fill needs to happen to accommodate employees at all of the new hotels that have gone up in recent years.

Still, water is still the major limiting factor. Besides supplying water to its 5,400 residents Moab needs to supply water for an additional 19,000 visitors in peak season. This requires a huge amount of additional capacity which is provided by three storage tanks and several aquifers and wells. The city needs to drill at least two more wells in the near future to accommodate projected demand and population growth.

We reported in our previous stories that many of the hotel and restaurant staff are living out of their vehicles and often need to wait or seek apartments and housing for up to one or two years before they find actual housing.

Accommodating growth while preserving the quality of life of Moab is a huge balancing act that Moab leaders are working to solve. The main barrier now is that the city is still extremely congested, and all amenities and infrastructure are maxed out at peak season.

Locals and leaders have the mindset that they currently do not want to see more tourism in peak season.

Still, many residents would rather keep things nice for locals than cater to the elites who want to buy up every available property in town. A gentleman we found meditating on a park bench along the Mill Creek Parkway last fall put it succinctly, “I’ve lived in a lot of places, and this is where I want to raise my daughter and live.” He works at the Moonflower Market in town and lived in a cave for two years before finding a home.

SUGAR HOUSE Dr. Todd Cameron.

Mending The Mind Body Connection Naturopathic Medical Doctor Todd Cameron believes psychedelics ‘change lives’

D

r. Todd Cameron has been around.

Not only is he a Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD), he has also worked as a pediatric ICU nurse and is certified in Advanced Wilderness Life Support and as a Wilderness Medicine First Responder.

Because of his vast experience, he has had a number of residents who spent up to two years in his clinic, Cameron Wellness Center. He still gets a lot of requests from “medical students of every ilk” who want to work with an instructor.

“It’s because I’m old, and I’ve been

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around,” Cameron laughs.

The old guy is a strong proponent of medical marihuana, CBDs and psychedelics as treatment for various disorders. “I’m very, very thankful that we’re now living in a world where we can do serious research again on psychotropics without the stigma that Timothy Leary kind of dragged along in the 60s when he wanted people to drop out,” he said.

Richard Alpert, later known as “Ram Dass” and Leary studied LSD extensively and were pioneers in the field.

They “were doing remarkable things

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in prisons with violent criminals, like really opening up their minds and getting them away from thinking violent thoughts,” Cameron said.

Cameron speaks from experience and not just medical literature. “With my patients, especially the ones that are in a lot of pain or have a lot of anxiety or have a lot of depression, it changes lives and it does so quickly,” he said. This proves to be especially true of the suicidal. “They go through a couple of different sessions and realize how beautiful the world is and how beautiful they are, and how much more grounded they can be.”

His enthusiasm for the subject, seemingly unbounded, continued, “In my opinion, every single person that ever wanted to take public office should go through some sort of guided treatment with some sort of psychotropic substance,” Cameron said. “If they’re going to go into a position of responsibility over everything that we are losing in this world, including climate change [and] politics leading to war, this would change the way they see the world immensely.”

As much as Cameron is concerned with the mind, he is equally concerned with the body. “If they don’t have very good mental health, their physical health can be better. So, it’s kind of all wrapped up in one,” he said.

The Menninger Clinic, a psychiatric hospital and research center, published case studies which particularly interested Cameron. One such case regarded a child who was about seven years old who had multiple personality disorder (now known primarily as dissociative identity disorder) from trauma. “When he was in one personality,

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he would get hives if he drank orange juice, but if his personality changed, his hives would immediately go away,” Cameron said. He also studied another case at a conference of a woman who was allergic to chocolate cake, but only at weddings. “So, you have to take not only what you’re eating into consideration, but the mental state and the emotional state of the individual.”

“We are wheels within wheels within wheels,” Cameron said. “Within my experience as a clinician, there is really nothing that I can think of that exists alone in its effects in the body. I mean, quite literally.”

Cameron believes that if you want to know how you respond to a particular food, you need to eat it by itself. For instance, fasting before eating sugar or starch alone, and then later measuring your response on a glucometer, is a great way to see how an individual responds to sugars. “The onus is on the individual to find out, if they really want to find out,” he said.

Though Cameron acknowledges the differences between individuals, he believes that if you want to stay both mentally and physically healthy, most people should reduce the amount of food that turns into sugar quickly on an empty stomach, “because that’s your worst enemy. It spikes your sugar, it spikes your insulin, you start getting free radical damage. That starts cardiovascular disease, and it’s a mess,” he said.

With 85 five-star reviews on Google, it seems that many patients of the Cameron Wellness Center believe and practice that which Cameron and his staff purport.

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Alternative Approaches to Dining & Drinking

By Ted Scheffler

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et’s face it, we all get into ruts. I know I do. With hundreds and hundreds of restaurants to eat at and support, how many of us tend to default to just a handful? Maybe it’s a matter of just thinking a bit out of the box. You know, choosing perhaps to enjoy a non-alcoholic alternative to a classic cocktail, or something like a raw food meal rather than a steak and potato? There are numerous ways of alternative eating and drinking. Here are a few favorites.

Who doesn’t love a tasty dessert?

About a dozen years ago, Nanette Wessels opened City Cakes & Cafe, specializing in delicious vegan and gluten free cakes, cookies, muffins, donuts and such. Yes, vegan. I’m not vegan, but I can testify to how yummy City Cakes & Cafe baked goods are. In fact, they are so popular that a second City Cakes & Cafe location was opened in Draper. They offer cakes that are vegan, gluten free, soy free or a mix of all three — all custom made from

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WB's Acapulco Smoke Box Whiskey

to 12-inches in flavors like red velvet, lemon coconut, orange poppy, carrot, and more.

Beyond cakes, City Cakes offers gluten free sandwich buns, gluten free whoopie pies with plantbased “fudge”, and dairy-free buttercream, cinnamon rolls that are vegan and gluten free but taste like the real deal, and much, much more.

At Ogden’s WB’s Eatery in The Monarch, you can indulge in specialty cocktails such as the White Widow Colada, Acapulco Smoke, Skywalker Margarita, and the delish Lemon Diesel Caipirinha. But WB’s also caters to cocktail lovers who prefer to eschew the alcohol. The talented bartenders at WB’s Eatery can craft cocktails using low alcohol ingredients or no alcohol, such as Ritual Zero Proof, Kentucky 74, Lyres, and Monday, to make dry cocktails.

Or, enjoy Thomas and Scott vegan,

dealcoholized, organic sparkling Chardonnay or Giesen Sauvignon Blanc with the alcohol removed. There’s even 0% alcohol Surreal Juicy Mavs IPA beer to enjoy. WB’s also offers gift boxes and ingredients for making alcohol-free drinks at home, such as their Acapulco Smoke Whiskey alternative box.

Way back in 2005, Omar Abou-Ismail saw that there was a market and a

need for a restaurant serving healthy, organic, sustainable, gluten free, non-GMO foods prepared with low temperature techniques or raw (Omar has a B.A. in Science Degree), and so he opened the original Rawtopia in Sugarhouse before relocating more recently to Olympus Hills.

For example, the sushi-style Seaweed Roll is made with a choice of macadamia nut rice or forbidden rice

utahstories.com | 35

Stein Eriksen Lodge Alpenglobe

and cucumber, bell pepper, avocado, hemp seed, scallion, carrot, romaine, served with sweet curried almond ginger sauce, sweet basil sauce, or sweet & spicy tamari sauce. And that’s just one example from a menu that includes an abundance of tasty temptations like the Beanless Tostada, Labneh Pizza, Egousi, Dandelion Salad, Nut Burger, Vegan Tacos, and much more. Oh, and there’s even a robust beverage selection that includes cocktails, wine, beer and cider.

For some of us, the pandemic isn’t over. If you’re wanting to dine out but not wanting to encounter restaurant crowds, the Alpenglobe company has you covered. Alpenglobes are private, enclosed wood and glass dining modules that can be outfitted with mood lighting, infrared heating, fresh air circulation, sound systems, and more.

Most importantly, they allow you and your close-knit dining party to enjoy a restaurant meal without having to rub elbows with people you don’t know.

Designed and fabricated right here

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in Utah, Alpenglobes can be found at restaurants such a Midway’s Cafe Galleria, the Montage, Stein Eriksen Lodge, High West Distillery, Nelson Cottage, and Butcher’s Chop House in Park City, as well as La Caille, Wasatch Brew Pub, and Franck’s in Salt Lake City. It’s a safe and fun alternative way to dine.

And, let’s not forget about our fur babies. Would you want to eat mass-produced kibble from a big box store? I didn’t think so. And neither does your dog. That’s why Kris Johnson and Sadie Gabler created Drool Small Batch Dog Treats as a healthy alternative to the treats most of us give our dogs. These are literally dog treats that humans could eat. They’re made using natural, human-grade ingredients. For instance, Drool Chicken Soup Biscuits are made like you cook a stew at home — slow cooking an entire chicken with tasty ingredients like carrots and celery, ultimately ending up as biscuit treats that your dog (and maybe you, too) will absolutely love.

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Lassonde Studios Student Entrepreneur Center Austin Birch and Laurbong Gai at the Lassonde Studios.

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By Al Sacharov

PHOTO BY BRADEN LATIMER

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T

he future is today at Lassonde Studios on the University of Utah campus. The student lounge has the normal dorm stuff such as a pool table, video games and comfy chairs. But that is where similarities end. How many other dorms have a fully-equipped tool room and access to patent attorneys?

Lassonde is more than just a dorm housing 400 residents. It is a center for student entrepreneurs making their business dreams a reality.

Two of those students are junior Austin Birch and sophomore Laurbong Gai. Austin has started Argus Entertainment to produce concerts and special events.

Laurbong has created Balmont Ave, a fashion boutique that has premiered several collections. A graduate of Stansbury High, Austin says Lassonde allows him to meld together his love of music with its technical aspects. “This is a hub for people wanting to do something cool,” he says. Lassonde provides him with free office space and he is planning a concert series. “Lassonde invests in its students. It absolutely goes above and beyond,” he says. For Juan Diego alumnus Laurbong, a fashion designer needs sewing machines. Lassonde provides sewing machines. “I want to create elegance in my clothing line,” he says.

Both Austin and Laurbong are also full-time students at the U of U, with Austin majoring in information systems and Laurbong in marketing.

What makes Lassonde so special is that it is not a class assignment but a student passion. There is no syllabus.

“It’s a place to live, create and launch,”says Austin.

The founder of the Studio is Pierre Lassonde, a U of U graduate who wanted to honor his late wife by forming a space for engineering and business minds to merge. “It’s a playground for student innovation. Kids are learning through trial and error, but they are always learning,” says Thad Kellong, marketing and public relations director.

The Studio is a showcase, but there are mentorships and collaborations involving other students as well. This enables the U of U to be one of the nation’s top schools for young entrepreneurs. The Lassonde idea has existed for twenty years and the actual dorm for six, Kelling says.

During that time a backpack and telehealth company (among others) became full-time businesses. “I am humbled every day by the creativity I see,” Kelling says.

At 75, Pierre Lassonde remains a vital inspiration for students in the program. On a pillar in the lounge are life precepts he champions. They include “Leave a better world behind” and “Never miss an opportunity to throw a party.” On that note, Austin says, “Lassonde students know how to party hard.”

Lassonde Studios will hold an open house on May 4 to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Lassonde invests in its students. It absolutely goes above and beyond.”

utahstories.com | 39

S T R O N G W O M E N O F U TA H

Lisa Forman of Legends Pub & Grill How one woman’s perseverance led to success

T

he restaurant and bar industry is tough to break into and even tougher to make successful. Lisa Forman, owner of Legends Pub & Grill, tried her own strategy and it paid off.

“I don’t really pay attention to anybody else. I’m not part of the industry and I just focus on what I’m doing,” she says.

Forman first opened Legends after leaving her corporate job in sales at Automatic Data Processing (ADP).

Her experience there helped her start Legends. She had made good contacts, and the sales techniques she learned

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helped her to sell herself and her business.

In addition to being told constantly that her business would fail, a man in the industry told her that, “Our industry is cutthroat and it’s hard to thrive here if you don’t belong to our group.”

She persevered anyway and proved him wrong.

Lisa and her husband Dave started their business with their life savings rather than through loans or investors.

She said they did have some help from family along the way. “[You make] a

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Lisa said she had always wanted to own her own business. “My dad had a small restaurant in Ashton where I grew up and I always thought it would be fun to own a bar and restaurant.

Then I got into it and all the problems and long hours came along.”

Now that her business is successful, Lisa said the next phase for her is helping others. She mentors and advises her employees with the aim to help them get a start or to take over for her and Dave when they retire. She recalls one employee who was on drugs and had lost her sons. They helped her straighten out her life and get her boys back. “That help is now my main purpose,” she says. “They call me Mama Bear.”

Forman’s advice for other women looking to get into the restaurant and bar business is this: “Not only do you have to be strong but you also have to believe in yourself and believe you can do anything you want to do.” She says you should expect to get bullied a little bit, so you need the confidence to stick up for yourself, and in doing so, you will earn some respect along the way.

PHOTO BY DUNG HOANG

few mistakes, because you don’t know what you’re doing and everything costs more than you planned on,” she explains. But their hard work paid off and they’ve been able to grow the business and pay back their life savings.

In building her business, Forman chose to ignore others’ advice and just focus on what resonated best with her, which included an emphasis on service, caring about others, and paying more than the industry standard.

“When I’ve followed who I am completely, I’ve been successful. But when I’ve strayed away from that, I haven’t been as successful,” she says.

Using big venues has paid off as well.

Although the Sandy location seems bigger, it is about the same size as the downtown location, just with a different layout. Both were former Iggy’s.

They found the first building on their own, then approached Dave Ipaktchian, owner of Iggy’s in Salt Lake, and acquired that space. When Iggy’s was closing in Sandy, he approached the Formans to see if they were interested.

By then, they had formed a friendship, and both locations have been successful.

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Pantages Theatre Preserving theatrical history

By Cathy McKitrick

S

ALT LAKE CITY­—In mid-March, the future of the Utah Pantages Theatre hung by a thread as supporters fought in court to stop developers from demolishing the once-glamorous century-old structure on Main Street.

On March 8, Third District Court Judge Robert Faust denied Friends of the Utah Pantages Cinematic Theatre’s request for a temporary restraining order that would block the wrecking ball’s blows while their case gets fully litigated.

But with that denial, Faust granted Friends the chance to amend and strengthen their request.

The nonprofit Friends—which formed last June – includes case plaintiffs Michael Patton, Derek Bleazard, Casey McDonough and Ibrahima Fall, who filed their initial complaint in February against Salt Lake City Corporation and its Redevelopment Agency – a municipal board made up of Mayor Erin Mendenhall and city council members.

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Patton, a self-described filmmaker and activist, said they planned to revise their request, add more defendants, and resubmit to the court as soon as possible.

“I found out about the theatre about 10 years ago when the city first bought it, and I was excited they were going to restore it,” Patton said. “But then in 2019, we found out about this new deal to destroy it.”

Since then, he’s been spearheading the effort to save and restore the Pantages theatre, which he considers both historically and culturally significant.

McDonough, an architect, worked to help establish the theatre’s eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places, an action that the State Historic Preservation Office had recommended the Redevelopment Agency pursue in 2019, according to court documents.

On November 4, 2021, Salt Lake City’s Historic Landmark Commission unanimously approved making that recommendation of eligibility to the

State Historic Preservation Office.

However, prior to the State Office’s scheduled meeting on November 18, the city conveyed the property’s title to Main Street Tower Owner, LLC—a subsidiary of the Texas-based Hines Acquisition company.

In a November 10 letter to the Utah Division of State History, Main Street Tower’s attorney Bruce Baird detailed his opposition to that historic designation.

“The unfortunate reality is that the property is beyond repair and there is not a financially viable use for restoration,” Baird said in his letter.

But Patton disagrees, convinced that Pantages is a treasure that can be restored and once again bring in revenue.

“Pantages is not in a vacuum,” Patton said, noting its place among others designed by renowned architect B. Marcus Priteca. “There’s a Hollywood Pantages, one in Tacoma almost identical to ours, and also one in Toronto/ Minneapolis.”

Patton also questioned the city’s projected restoration estimates.

“The RDA has been inflating these numbers for years, saying it would cost $60 to $80 mil to restore,” Patton said.

According to Historic Theater News, restoration of Tacoma’s historic Pantages cost less than $25 million, which included seismic upgrades. That work finished in 2018.

“It’s very doable,” Patton said of the Salt Lake City Pantages restoration, noting that landing a spot on the National Register would open the door for federal tax credits to help fund it.

He also believes that grants, private donations from benefactors and other

sources could be found to get the job done.

In December 2019, the Redevelopment Agency sold the property— which was then valued at just over $4 million—to Hines for $0.

That agreement came with the stipulation that a mid-block walkway and family-friendly park with an entertainment venue would be included in the project. The developer also agreed to provide at least 10 percent of the housing units in the proposed mixed-use tower to households making 60 to 80 percent of area median income.

The court document filed by Main Street Tower Owner LLC in opposition to the temporary restraining order described what they considered to be excessive behavior on the part of Patton and other plaintiffs.

“This is not Plaintiffs first, second or even third attempt to derail MSTO’s redevelopment efforts,” Baird said in the filing, noting their vigorous opposition at several City Council and RDA meetings, trespassing in the theater, along with a “smear social media campaign slandering Salt Lake City officials.”

Baird also wrote that a wrongful injunction blocking demolition could incur annual costs in the tens of millions of dollars due to delays in the property’s development.

“The injunction would adversely affect the public interest,” Baird concluded, urging denial of the temporary restraining order.

Depending on the court’s ultimate decision, demolition could begin shortly, rendering any further legal action to save Pantages moot.

utahstories.com | 45

BARS & PUBS A BAR NAMED SUE

Full bar, food, pool tables, pingpong. 3928 S Highland Dr, SLC + 8136 S State St, Midvale

BEERHIVE PUB

Main Street just got a whole lot cooler! A big, gorgeous bar, hundreds of great beers and good company. 128 S Main St., SLC

BIG WILLIES

Good pub food, sports bar and pool tables. 1717 S Main St, SLC

BODEGA

Home of SLC’s best kept secret. 331 S Main Street

BOHEMIAN BREWERY

Czechs know: Amazing food. Amazing beer. 94 E 7200 S

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Perfect spot to watch the Jazz and enjoy a burger and a brew. 677 S 200 W

LUCKY 13

Excellent food and a friendly atmosphere. 135 W 1300 S

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POPLAR STREET PUB

Good food, great selection of local beers. 242 S 200 W

PROPER BREWING CO. Craft beer and a full bar. Food available next door at Proper Burger Co. 857 S Main St., SLC

RED ROCK BREWING CO.

Tapas, exceptional cocktails, DJ. 364 S State, SLC

Utah’s most awarded brew pub: taste why. 254 S 200 W + 1640 W Redstone Center Dr, Park City

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Classic aprés ski, famous garlic burgers. 2820 E 6200 S, Holladay Great food and atmosphere for a night out. Trolley Square Watch the Utes and drink a stein in Sugar House. 1063 E 2100 S

GRACIE’S

Service, drinks, food and ambience—all top notch. 326 S West Temple, SLC

Where great dining and beer was born in Salt Lake City. 147 W Broadway (300 S) A must see ‘Beervana’, 100s of beers. 645 S State St., SLC Renovated 19-century boiler room with a patio for clever small plates, pub classics & craft beer. 32 S Exchange Pl, SLC

UINTA BREWERY

GREEN PIG PUB

A small pub attached to Utah’s biggest brewery. 1722 Fremont Dr. (2375 W)

HOG WALLOW

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Celebrating America’s Craft Breweries with over 300 Brands 128 South Main Street • Salt Lake City Open every day from Noon to 1 am

April Activities January Through April

Downtown Farmers Market—Winter. Continuing on Saturdays through April 23rd, the market is held at The Gateway, 10 N Rio Grande Street, Salt Lake City. The market includes locally grown and produced produce, meat, eggs, cheese, baked goods, sauces, condiments, chocolate, and more. Hours are from 10am to 2pm.

April 13

McCune Mansion Tours. Tours are from 10am to 11am and 11am to 12pm. This mansion on Capitol Hill has imported roof tiles from Holland, white satin-grained mahogany from South America and a room-sized mirror from Germany. The mansion also features ceiling murals and decorative borders that took an artist from New York two years to finish. It was completed in 1901 and restored in 2001. Tickets for the one hour tour are $12.

April 15, 16, 17

Gem Faire. This event will be held at the Mountain America Expo Center, 9575 S State Street in Sandy. The hours are 12 to 6pm on Friday, 10am to 6pm on Saturday and 10am to 5pm on Sunday. Admission is $7 for a weekend pass.

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The show will feature fine jewelry, crystals, gems, beads, minerals, gold & silver, fossils, and more.

April 16

Riverton Park Bunny Hop. Held from 10am to 11am this event is different from most Easter Egg Hunts. Held at Riverton City Park, 1452 W 12600 S families make their way around the park visiting stations to get candy, prizes, or to participate in Easter activities. The Easter Bunny will be there for photos. For ages 12 and younger.

April 22-23

Fall Peace Officers Trail Ride. This annual event is held in Moab and honors the state’s fallen peace officers. Visit upoa.org for more information.

April 23

Earth Day Celebration at Ogden Nature Center.

Held from 11am to 4pm at 966 W 12th Street in Ogden. Celebrate Earth Day with exhibits, demonstrations, entertainment, food, nature crafts, and fun activities. Admission is $5 for non-members, $4 for members, and $3 for children under 12. All proceeds benefit the mission of the Ogden Nature Center.

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