Something I did not know until today: there are hundreds of YouTube videos of planes landing at the airport in St. Maarten's. Watch the above video (and if you're like me, you'll end up watching five or six more of the like) and you'll see why.

State Rep. Daniel Patterson called us to deny the accusations that he hit his now ex-girlfriend and campaign manager, Georgette Escobar, saying she has serious mental problems and a history of felonies—and is trying to blackmail him.

He also said he will not step down from the Legislature, despite calls from his own party’s leadership and executive director to quietly go away. Patterson said the calls for him to resign are premature, and that the truth will vindicate him—though he may leave the party.

“This is lynch-mob type of politics that we see from Phoenix, and I’m not going to listen to these cutthroat throw-em-under-the-bus politicians from Phoenix,” he said. “I’m responsive to my constituents in Tucson. Period. … I’m not going to be blackmailed out of office.”

“I may become an independent,” he added.

He said he called the cops when he and Escobar got into an argument on Friday after she had told him about her history of mental illness and crime. She freaked out and hit him “at least 30 times” before the cops arrived, he said.

He said he was not cited or arrested and has not yet been served with a restraining order, though he admits to dodging service, because he said Escobar threatened to change the locks on his house after she had the order.

He speculated that the bruises she displayed to reporters today were self-inflicted, and said that the cops didn’t see any marks on her Friday.

Escobar is making allegations that are similar to those made by Patterson's ex-wife, Jeneiene Schaffer, two years ago. Patterson said that's because Escobar saw what Schaffer did and is following her example.

He said that he hasn’t made the best choices with women.

“I know I’m going to be much, much more careful with who I associate with in the future,” he said.

He said Escobar claims he owes her “thousands of dollars” and has hinted that if he would pay up, these allegations wouldn’t have become public. He said he doesn’t owe her money, and his position as a politician made him an easy target.

“People wonder why good people don’t go into politics," Patterson said. "It’s because of attacks like this.”

Patterson said he worries about his own safety and the safety of his daughter, and doesn’t want any contact with Escobar.

“I don’t feel safe around this woman. I think she’s a threat; she’s threatened me before. She’s blackmailing me,” he said.

As for the dog, Jake, Patterson said the pet belongs to both of them, and he just wants it to be safe. (When the Tucson Weekly interviewed Escobar this morning, she produced a document to show that the dog was registered in her name.)

“I’m happy to work something out with the dog. I just wanted to make sure he had someplace safe to be right now,” he said.

Thanks to the fine people at Casino Del Sol, we have a pair of tickets to give away to the Boz Scaggs show there on March 9th. It's super easy to enter, just head to our contest page, press a button (assuming you're a member of our website), and we'll let you know if you win.

Good luck!

Rep. Daniel Patterson has taken to Twitter to deny allegations of abuse from his now ex-girlfriend:

Allegations are lies from person w bad mental problems & violent criminal history trying to blackmail me. I will not resign.

Meanwhile, Patterson's support at the Capitol continues to collapse as Democrats in the Arizona Senate, including seatmate Linda Lopez, have called on him to step down:

Senate Democratic Leader David Schapira, Assistant Democratic Leader Leah Landrum Taylor and Senator Linda Lopez (D-29) released the following statement urging Representative Daniel Patterson (D-29) to resign.

“This Legislature expects that its members adhere to standards of conduct, which the Senate Ethics Committee upheld just last month. If any legislator, regardless of party, cannot adhere to these standards they must, at the very least, respect the constituents who elected them by resigning. With so many problems facing our state right now, Arizonans cannot afford to have their elected officials be focused on anything but finding solutions.”

Luis Heredia, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party, has followed up the call by Arizona House Democratic leaders for Rep. Daniel Patterson to resign after allegation surfaced this weekend that he had beaten his girlfriend, kicked her out of the home they shared, and stolen her dog.

Heredia's statement:

The impending legal issues that Rep. Patterson faces render him unable to fully serve the voters of Legislative District 29. Therefore, I call on Rep. Daniel Patterson to do what is best for his constituents and resign from office immediately.

I do not call on a sitting Democratic elected official to resign lightly. However, I firmly believe that the voters of Southern Arizona deserve a representative who can serve them without distraction. Rep. Patterson will be accorded his day in court, but that is his personal business, not the business of his Southern Arizona constituents.

Democrats are asking state Rep. Daniel Patterson to step down from the Legislature today after Patterson allegedly beat and bruised his girlfriend and stole her dog over the weekend.

House Minority leader Chad Campbell this afternoon called for Patterson to resign. Campbell said he hoped that Patterson, D-Tucson, would take the advice and leave the easy way.

“We are going to ask him to step down,” Campbell said. “His constituents deserve someone who can focus on the responsibilities of the office.”

"He needs to be held to the same legal standard as every other citizen of the state," Campbell said.

And despite years of allegations that Patterson has been physically and verbally abusive to his family and friends, Campbell said he has never had enough evidence to actually go after Patterson until now.

Patterson doesn’t have many friends left at the Capitol — Republicans make no secret about their feelings toward the second-term lawmaker, and even his Democratic co-workers are bailing on him quickly.

“I’m very concerned,” said Rep. Tom Chabin, D-Flagstaff, earlier in the morning. “And if its true, he’s on his own.”

Rep. Macario Saldate, D-Tucson, said he’s heard the accusations, and if they turn out to be true, he wants Patterson out of the Legislature.

“Absolutely (I would support ethics hearings), that’s an appropriate way to go, I support that,” he said.

If Patterson decides not to step down (he so far hasn’t returned phone calls from the Tucson Weekly), House Democrats are ready to file a formal ethics complaint against him, said Murphy Herbert, the House Democrats’ spokeswoman.

Rep. Ted Vogt, R-Tucson, is chairman of the House Ethics Committee and it would his decision to hold an ethics investigation—like the process Sen. Scott Bundgaard faced late last year after he stopped on the side of a Phoenix freeway and hit his girlfriend. Bundgaard eventually resigned rather than testify before the committee.

Vogt said he hasn’t yet received a formal complaint, which he would need to open an investigation.

Republicans took no time to start throwing their own punches.

State Sen. Frank Antenori said serious accusations have been swirling around Patterson for years, and it’s about time he got what’s coming to him.

“It’s like karma,” he said. “What goes around comes around.”

The last time the Tucson Weekly wrote about state Rep. Daniel Patterson's issues on the home front ("The Family Man," Sept. 30, 2010), Patterson was in the middle of a re-election campaign while apparently evading service for an order of protection filed by his then-estranged wife, Jeneiene Schaffer. The couple had filed for divorce on Aug. 27, 2010 and on that same day, Schaffer filed for a restraining order against him.

Part of the problem then was that no one knew where Patterson was living, since he had moved out of the family's home less than six months after his wife had a double-mastectomy for breast cancer. Meanwhile, others in the Pima County Democratic Party establishment shared that he was spending more time with his campaign manager, Georgette Escobar.

Well, last week, Escobar filed her own restraining order against Patterson. She alleges that the state legislator is trying to evade service, just as he did to his ex-wife two years ago.

There is only one entrance to his current home, a gate at the driveway that is padlocked, she says, making it impossible for anyone to walk up to the door to serve him. She's hoping someone will serve him in Phoenix, since the Legislature is in session today. She says she has no money to hire a private processor.

Although Patterson has not returned calls from the Weekly, the Range sat down with Escobar this morning and received a copy of the restraining order.

Escobar, visibly shaken, said a week ago, she moved out of the house she shares with Patterson—he owns the home—located near Santa Rita Park. She had moved some of her belongings out and into storage, and returned to get additional items on Friday, Feb. 24. Allegedly, Patterson blocked Escobar's car in the driveway with his own car, and locked the gate.

Escobar claims Patterson told her he'd let her out when he wanted to. Eventually he did, and as she started to drive away, he flagged her down and told her she'd have to get permission from him to return to the property. When she started driving off again, she saw that her dog, Jake, was running through the alley, and she called him to get into the car. Escobar says as she helped the dog in, Patterson allegedly ran up to the car, grabbed the dog by the collar, and grabbed her by the arm, leaving bruises on her upper right arm — which she showed to us. He also allegedly bent her fingers back to remove her fingers from her dog's collar and grabbed the dog by the collar, choking him and throwing him out of the car, before he twisted Escobar's arms and threw her down to the ground.

Tucson Police were called to the scene by Tucson Parks and Recreation employees who saw the encounter from the park.

Police records are unavailable today; the office is not open on Monday.

Escobar says she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and an anxiety disorder. She adopted Jake as a therapy dog and was training him to be her service animal.

Escobar asked for the restraining order because Patterson has allegedly threatened to harm and kill her, and she also needs to have him escorted off the property so she can get the rest of her belongings. She claims most of the furniture in the house belongs to her.

"I really can’t comment on the investigation, and I am not trying to try him in the media. I encouraged him to be served, because he has 5 to 10 days to request to have a hearing, and the judge will hear his side of the case ... He’s not willing to submit to process to go through that proceeding," Escobar says.

Escobar also claims that Patterson owes her money and that she pays rent to live at the house and had paid rent for February, which entitles her to have access to the house to retrieve the rest of her belongings. She also wants to be paid the remainder of what he owes her for the work she's done as his campaign manager.

"I am a lawyer. I wanted to volunteer in politics and had relocated (to Tucson) from a shelter. I’m disabled, so I thought I’d meet more quality and caring people (in the Democratic Party) who were compassionate," she says.

Escobar says that when Patterson first started living with her, still married, his wife was in the hospital having a double mastectomy. She claims Patterson told her his wife had a slight illness and was having a small procedure.

"(Meanwhile), he was having the time of his life at my house. I feel really guilty and bad about that," she says.

I freely admit to having a severe pro-freestyle critical bias. I grew up listening to the 808-heavy Latin influenced dance music sub-genre and I still listen to the stuff relatively frequently, so I can't really distance myself enough to think about the music in any other way than absolutely positive. I will love this music forever, regardless of its overall place in pop history, so clearly, I'm quite excited for the Freestyle Explosion show coming to the TCC on May 19th (the day before my birthday, even!) and sponsored by 106.3 The Groove.

Expose! Lisa Lisa! Stevie B! Debbie Deb! Connie! Stacey Q! I should probably pace my excitement a bit, considering the show is in May, but this could be the highlight of my musical year. Good luck staying awake at Bon Iver. No one will have such an issue at the Freestyle Explosion show, I promise.

Bonus video! Debbie Deb, "Lookout Weekend"!

Amazing things happen on the culinary stage at the annual Tucson Festival of Books. Last year Janos Wilder gave a speech that led to a change in local food policy that allowed restaurants to legally use produce from backyard gardeners. Who knows what could happen this year?

This year's line up looks promising: Ryan Clark from Lodge on the Desert, Doug Levy of Feast, Ethan Schulz of Fleming's Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar, Massimo Tenino of Tavolino Ristorante Italiano, Wilder and others. There's a ton of demonstrations and other culinary-related readings as well, and it sounds like there will be some pretty decent eats, too.

The event takes place this Saturday and Sunday on the UA Mall. There's more on the festival over here. If you go to the events page and search the culinary category you can find a quick guide to all the food-related stuff.

It looks like the new sushi spot How Do You Roll?, which is located in half of the old Pizza Plus #1 spot at 914 E. Speedway Blvd., is open. It sells a sort of fast-food, design-it-yourself sushi deal. More on that here.

Next door, in the other half of the building, the new shop Josie's Yogurt is open, too. It sells frozen yogurt. More on that here.