South Tucson's El Independiente, 1979-05-04

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South Tucson's
Tenants
granted
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News/Page 2
I rw i n,
Democrats
discuss views
News/Page 3
EI Independiente
South Tucson talks back to media
Metropolitan newspapers
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NEWSPAPERS CRITICIZED - Tucson's two daily newspapers stand accused of
presenting only the sordid side of life in South Tucson, and of never being around when
anyfbing positive happens, according to South Tucson Mayor Dan W. Eckstrom.
Liquor bill dies unnatural death
in legislature's rush to adjourn
By BARBARA DUBIN
Staff Writer
A state bill that was important to the
people of South Tucson, drafted at their
request and would have helped in their
efforts to clean up the city, has died.
However, Senate Bill 1270 sponsored
by Republican Sen. Luis A. Gonzales did
not die a natural death. It was the target
of House and Senate opponents who
zeroed in on the bill, stalked it on its
journey through the legislature, im-prisoned
it in committees and, when that
failed, killed it.
News Analysis
Bill 1270 was introduced by Gonzales in
the Senate in February and was passed
there in March un a 21-13 vote.
It was then sent to the House and
assigned to the Counties and
Municipalities Committee, but Chairman
Donna Carlson, R-Mesa, decided not to
act on it.
What was in this bill that it aroused
uch relentless pursuit on the part of its
loes? It simply provided for stronger
zommunity input when a liquor license is
onsidered and required an applicant to
prove the license would be in the best
interests of the community.
The bill would have allowed com-unities
to have a strong voice in
protesting the granting of liquor licenses
in areas already glutted with bars and
liquor stores.
Gonzales promptly amended his bill
onto another House bill, 2303, dealing
with licenses for liquor salesmen, which
had the support of the State Liquor
Control Board. Bill 2303, including
Gonzales' amendment, was passed by the
House.
Then the wait started for Bill 2303 to
come to the floor of the Senate for a vote.
The day of adjournment for the
legislature was approaching, and still the
bill hadn't been put on the calendar by
Senate President Leo Corbet, Phoenix
Republican.
On April 20, the last night of the
session, Bill 2303 was sent to a joint
Senate-House conference committee
composed mainly of Republicans. At 3
am., April 21, the committee voted not to
accept Gonzales' amendment.
"So I decided the best thing was to kill
the entire bill. It died 17-13 in the
Senate," Gonzales said.
"They waited until the very last day,
then they tried to sneak it through when
everyone was tired, But we kept on top of
it and made sure the votes were there, I
got three or four people not to commit
themselves, They didn't vote," Gonzales
said.
"It was the last bill on the calendar.
They wanted to get it through once my
By RIC VOLANTE
Staff Writer
Tucson's two metropolitan newspapers,
The Arizona Daily Star and the Tucson
Citizen, are demeaning in their
coverage of South Tucson, Mayor Dan W,
Eckstrom has charged.
The South Tucson mayor's view was
supported by merchants and residents of
the area who allege that the two
newspapers have not paid enough at-tention
to their city except when there is
something segativto report. Newspaper
articles about the recent crackdown on
South Sixth Avenue, studded with
references to prostitutes, winos, morder
and drug trafficking, have underscored
for many residents the long-held belief
that South Tucson is often
misrepresented to the rest of the
metropolitan area.
"I realize people have to write (sen-sational)
headlines like that to sell
newspapers," Mayor Dan W. Eckstrom
commented last week, "It certainly is
demeaning to South Tucson. There are
certainly areas throughout metropolitan
Tucson that are as bad, or worse than,
South Sixth."
Eckstrom characterized South Tucson
amendment was off, The liquor industry
wanted that bill, and the leadership of
both houses wanted it passed.
"We got down to the wire with our bill
(SB 1270), which is farther than usual for
liqour legislation," he said,
"I will work during the summer on a bill
to present next session, and I'll work on
new forms. I'm looking closely at the
liquor board, whether they should be
autonomous and on what they have been
doing. Maybe it should be placed under
another agency. It would help com-munities
because new criteria would be
set up."
"My first priority is to get the
legislation through. The process needs to
be changed," he said, -
Despite the failure of his bill, Gonzales
said he felt it has done some good.
"Smaller communities are going to be
paid more attention now because of what
happened," he said. "The liquor depart-ment
will give them more technical
assistance on how to fill out forms. It will
help them put in specific reasons when
they don't want a license, and this will
help,
"I feel good about it. We all used
perfectly legal tactics. I have never
receive anything from them (liquor
interests), and if I ever do, I'll give it
back. As I told liquor lobbyist George
Mariscal, if you think this is something,
just wait until next year," Gonzales said,
City Council members as "generally
dissatisfied" with newspaper coverage of
South Tucson.
Editors at both the Star and Citizen
defended the coverage. while admitting
that some improvements could be made,
paticularly in the development of news
sources.
Al Polombo, owner of the Auction Barn,
2128 S. Sixth Ave. , said he was cnn-cerned
that news articles playing up the
city's problems would adversely affect
businesses.
"They called this a sleazy part of town,"
he said, "No way. This may be an older
part of town but it's not sleazy and it's not
Skid Row," He said that because of bad
publicity, "people have a tendency not to
come down and shop."
Polombo said focusing attention on
prostitutes and drug dealers through
newspapers "is like giving 'em free ad-vertising,"
and thus only increases such
problems.
Rachel Livas, a temporary resident of
the recently condemmed Pepper Tree
Court, 2025 S. Sixth Ave., told a reporter
early this week. "I can take you to every
house (at the Pepper Tree) and you show
me a prostitute or wino, There's not one. I
can walk down the street and not be
bothered, and I can trust my children to
go down there."
"I've gone down to around Grant (Road)
and Stone (Avenue), said Robert M.
Mendez, manager of the Pepper Tree.
"There are about four or five bars there,
same thing as South Tucson, but I don't
hear anything about that in the
newspapers."
Livas said she believed that South
Tucson City Council meetings have been
largely ignored by the major dailies for
years, except when something unusual
occured.
"And now every little bad thing that
happens, it's in the papers. And if
anything good happens, nobody's
around," added Mendez.
Menden said that when the city recently
posted signs reading "Unsafe to Occupy"
on the Pepper Tree's cottages, he ex-pected
more reporters to show op than
actually did,
"A day later the guy from Channel 13
(KOLD) came down, but no one from the
newspapers except El Independiente, and
we had to call them," he said.
Southside resident Pancho Medina also
agreed that the Star and Citizen do not
serve the South Tucson community
adequately.
He said more of the papers should be
written in Spanish, and disdainfully
referred to the Star's Actualidades
column - a light news column written in
Spanish - as "just a bone throwr to the
Chicano community." Part of the problem
in covering South Tucson, he said, is that
the Tucson dailies are written from an
"Anglo perspective."
But Rev. John Fife of Southside United
Presbyterian had some good words to say
fCos finued on page 2f
Vol. 111, No. Il Published By The Journalism Department 0f. The University Of Arizona Friday. May 4. 1979
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Editorial/Page 7 '6