A Freedom Lover in Mesa, Arizona
Corry, John
Mesa M esa, Arizona is all beige, brown, and tan, a city of some 340,000 that keeps growing. Phoenix is west, and the desert is east, and Mesa has reflections of both: the high-rise Bank of America...
...She is also an actress Suzanne Somers look-alike...
...I want to stand up for what I believe—even if I'm in my underwear," Kat told the National Examiner...
...But what's the use...
...Downtown has fewer visitors...
...This is no small issue...
...Therefore freedom of choice would be preserved, and property rights upheld, and no one would be forced to breathe second-hand smoke...
...Sam Spanos says he will sell Darby's —183 seats, chicken-fried steak and eggs, $4.59 — and move back to Washington, where he once owned Asti on M Street...
...Mayor Wayne Brown now says he will support Kat's initiative — a big victory for conservative post-feminism—but the special election will not be held until March, and the politics surrounding it are tortuous...
...ways and elevators...
...It is professional, and not personal...
...I will fight for my initiative...
...Gun nuts flourish in Mesa, and so, on occasion, do people who enroll in militias...
...1961 of the Loyal Order of Moose are down 6o percent...
...Smokers and non-smokers have come to blows in restaurant parking lots...
...Condo owners have argued about their pool patio...
...unquestionably, too, she is a shrewd organizer and born politician...
...Hard times have come, and life is being leached out of Mesa...
...the Moose use bingo money to buy Christmas presents for poor children...
...u nquestionably she believes this...
...It marches under the banner of individual freedom and economic rights, and says the anti-smoking law has been a disaster for Mesa...
...On the other hand, there is now the group we may call Kat's army...
...Antlers, beer steins, and old hunting rifles hang on the walls, and a German flag flaps from the ceiling...
...The owner of Main Street Billiards is unable to list his property with a commercial broker...
...People talked, and the media noticed, CNN, a Norwegian magazine, Japanese newspaper and various tabloids among them...
...It says Mesa businesses may decide for themselves whether they are smoking or non-smoking...
...Lufthansa pilots drive over from Phoenix...
...The former are most likely to be respectable citizens, and only the latter, eyes peeled for black helicopters rising over the Superstition Mountains, are thought of as batty...
...You can only push them so far, and then they'll fight back...
...Neither one smokes, but both defend the right of others to do so...
...Krause says...
...When Big Head Todd and the Monsters played the amphitheater two weeks later, their fans not only were told they could not smoke...
...When the problems caused by the anti-smoking laws became too serious to be ignored, the oligarchy looked for ways to ease them...
...I will go door to door," Kat Gallant says...
...But the smoking ban has killed breakfast, and lunch is up and down...
...the broker says no one will buy a business like that now in Mesa...
...The chief firebrand, Kat Gallant, who owns a men's hair-cutting salon, is the mother of seven sons...
...This was outrageous and silly, but it did just what she had hoped...
...Mom-and-pop businesses and other private enterprises, though, would get no relief...
...Mormons founded Mesa in 1878, and they always have taken their civic duties seriously...
...I will make television commercials, with apple pie, the American flag, and my grandson in them...
...Itis considered bad form in Mesa to suggest they vote as a bloc, but four of the six city councilmen are Mormon and so is the mayor, even though Mormons are only 15 percent of the population...
...Next year, no later—then we go...
...Robert Toobin, who sold his house in Manchester, Massachusetts, thirteen years ago, and used the money to open the Marquee restaurant in Mesa, says the smoking ban is putting him out of business...
...You also may not smoke near the entrance to a building, at a bus stop, in the queue outside a movie, or in the place where you wait to have your car washed...
...Mesa now has the most restrictive anti-smoking laws in the nation...
...T he firebrands are two women...
...It would be an understatement now to say the anti-smoking rules have created a fine mess in Mesa, and that discontent is growing...
...You may not smoke there in "conference rooms, meeting rooms, classrooms, auditoriums, cafeterias, lunchrooms, employees' lounges, restrooms, waiting areas, hallways, stairJOHN CORRY is The American Spectator's senior correspondent...
...I will put up posters...
...For some of Kat's troops, this is very personal...
...Meanwhile, the Corner Cafe is up for sale...
...Whatever the high-handedness of tobacco lobbyists, they are only doing a job...
...This gave the anti-tobacco initiative a head start: Mormons traditionally frown on smoking...
...Mesa wants to stay free of "tobacco or other plant smoke...
...It was approved, 20,729 to 16,38o, and while outside agitators had been at work on both sides—the Tobacco Institute on one, and the health-care industry on the other—it was widely believed in Mesa that Mormons had carried the day...
...Americans will be Americans," Kat says, explaining her success...
...She rejected their offer on principle...
...A male oligarchy is being bent out of shape by two conservative-libertarian women...
...Their principal weapon is a new citizens' initiative...
...Things are more serious than that, and a revolt has been born in the desert...
...It coalesced during her initiative drive, when she drove about Mesa in a Ford Ranger pick-up, and handed out petitions...
...If it is considered a public area the condo owners may not smoke there, but then what about their property rights...
...Kat Gallant wrote it...
...The heirs to the pioneers who tamed the desert may want government off their backs, but government intrudes when it is a crime to light up a Lucky...
...They transported the original Zur Kate from there to Mesa almost intact in 1983...
...Toobin is trying to turn the Marquee into a private club—it would cost io cents to join—although the city says he can't do it...
...But Mesa now finds it hard to live with the restrictions...
...Angry restaurant owners and others pointed out that the city was flouting its The American Spectator • January 1997 27 own laws and observing a double standard, and chastened officials agreed...
...The black leather lingerie has been put away, 28 January 1997 • The American Spectator and she has assembled a formidable force...
...It may ban smoking in private establishments, but when ZZ Top performed at the city-owned Mesa Amphitheater in November, a section was roped off for smokers...
...Mesa is the final triumph of the health police...
...Mesa may be the birthplace of a new post-feminist politics...
...You may not even withdraw to your own bathroom for a quick drag if you live in public housing...
...Obviously there is a contradiction here in conservative politics...
...No one wants to buy the Corner Cafe now, and Ms...
...Thornton is quietly desperate...
...Tobacco lobbyists waved money when they heard about this, and told Kat they would help her get the 4,000 signatures needed to put the initiative on the ballot in a special election...
...Then she led a drive that collected 7,367 signatures...
...Bingo receipts at Lodge No...
...Any Questions...
...But I will go down fighting," he insists...
...Some day in Mesa a priest may get hauled off to the pokey for burning incense at mass...
...You can stable your horse in city limits, and then ride out among the cactus, prickly pears, and signs that say no shooting...
...Her closest colleague is Joan Payne: a city councilwoman, Mormon mother of five, and past president of the Arizona Eagle Forum...
...Unless...
...Meanwhile, the city government has been confused...
...They are certain that God is on their side, along with the Cancer Society, Heart and Lung Association, and other organizations that help them with tax-free funding...
...It is even possible now they may win...
...There are problems elsewhere, too...
...Her posture—"I am the most conservative member of the City Council," she says—was considered too rigid...
...Probably it helps that in a southwestern city perched on a desert, she keeps a horse and sometimes wears cowboy boots...
...I will do whatever it takes...
...Donna Thornton used her life savings to open it...
...She ran a strong third in a five-man primary, and became a player in Mesa politics...
...That is un-American, the two women cried, and said they would continue to fight...
...This, after all, is a citizens' revolt...
...Nonetheless, no one knows how this will all turn out...
...Meanwhile, deals were struck, and understandings were reached...
...When she announced her candidacy for mayor earlier this year, she wore black leather lingerie and clutched a small whip...
...When citizens gather now she is there to address them...
...if they want to be both, they must maintain separate rooms for smokers that non-smokers do not have to enter...
...44...
...Even in the desert you may find their work: big billboards that show a distraught, unhappy woman, who looks to be nine-months pregnant...
...It excluded councilwoman Payne, however, from the deliberations...
...they also argue for free choice, free enterprise and other good principles...
...Health police, by contrast, burn with a messianic zeal...
...Mesa is tolerant of most things, but it draws the line at one...
...You may light up on a golf course or in a park, but only if you are alone, and no one tells you to extinguish it...
...Old friendships have been sundered, and local politics realigned...
...Gunther and Irene Krause will close the Zur Kate-84 seats, paprika schnitzel, $9.25—and move back to Hamburg...
...You may not smoke, either, in stadiums or amphitheaters or at parades...
...When you smoke you never know what to expect," the billboards say...
...security guards frisked them for cigarettes when they entered the amphitheater...
...Proponents had insisted they would not hurt business, but restaurants are closing, and bar traffic is light...
...The Mesa Clean Air Committee had collected only 4,636 signatures for the initiative that started all the trouble in the first place...
...It is small and neat, with whitewashed walls and red-checkered tablecloths, and Ms...
...They are adamant about their freedom...
...If you light a cigarette there, a cop is supposed to give you a summons...
...She has a rose tattooed on a toe and a rising sun on an ankle, and a sign outside her office that says: "I Have PMS and a Handgun...
...The anomalies began after the euphemistically named Mesa for Clean Air Committee placed a citizens' initiative on the ballot in the municipal primary last March...
...You try telling 4,000 ZZ Top fans they can't smoke," the assistant city manager said...
...Mrs...
...The troops are full of stories like that...
...The ambiguous message seems to be that cigarettes give you babies, and that if you smoke you will have one, probably out of wedlock...
...To complain about someone smoking in a public place," Mesa has advised its citizens, "call the Police Department at 6442211...
...The heirs to the men and women who tamed the desert and fought Apaches are terrified of second-hand smoke...
...Phoenix is west, and the desert is east, and Mesa has reflections of both: the high-rise Bank of America on the one hand, and old boots and saddles on the other...
...And after we've won, I'll ride my horse across America, and say freedom, freedom, freedom—freedom for all the people...
...Thornton's two daughters work there as waitresses...
...There is polka music from six to nine on Friday and Saturday nights...
...Smoking restrictions were to be eased for hotels, and for the city's own revenue-producing properties—the convention center, amphitheater, and stadium...
Vol. 30 • January 1997 • No. 1
