We offered our readers the chance to join the kicking-out party. Here's a sampling of what they chose to expel from the Old Pueblo.
THE AMERICAN GEM TRADE ASSOCIATION AND DOUGLAS HUCKER
Douglas Hucker's threats toward Tucson—build a downtown hotel and remodel the Tucson Convention Center, or he will move the Gem Show—fail to note that his show is merely one of 40-plus different shows, and operates for less than one week out of the five weeks of gem shows.
If he cancels his TCC contract, another promoter will immediately take over the TCC space. Many of his exhibitors already exhibit at other shows.
I challenge Hucker to find another city with such cheap costs to set up booths and unload tons of rocks and fossils. Let's see him find a city that has rail and truck routes to transport freight from deep within Mexico. Which city has the weather that we do to bring in the buyers? Which city has as many "roadside motels," ideal for vendors to set up huge outdoor displays?
—Matt Welch
COFFEE X CHANGE AT GRANT AND CAMPBELL
I suggest Coffee X Change at Grant Road and Campbell Avenue get out of town. This business has taken advantage of everyone by skirting zoning and parking issues, and changing to 24/7 hours, despite being next to homes.
The coffee shop now uses parking several blocks into the neighborhood, causing problems with noise, traffic, trash and even drug deals. When neighbors gathered to work with the Ward 3 office, the owner of Coffee X Change would not work with anyone and eventually threatened to sue individuals for not seeing things his way. He has stooped to petty threats, and he claims he isn't really making any money. What gives?
I am tired of trying to work with him. Shut down Coffee X Change, and tell his lawyer, John Munger, to quick hanging out with thugs. As for the owner, run him out of town on a rail!
—Victoria Kinghorn
CONGRESS PEOPLE WHOSE LAST NAMES HAVE EIGHT LETTERS AND START WITH "G"
Not content with just continuing to approve funding for the unfounded and illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (as is Raúl Grijalva), Gabrielle Giffords co-sponsored a bill last year that may have started a war with Iran by surrounding them with a naval blockade, and is now a co-sponsor of a just slightly less-hostile bill intending to halt Iran's importation of everything made of oil (which Grijalva has also co-sponsored) because of alleged weapons-of-mass-destruction programs that a National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 and the Congressional Research Service said that they don't have.
Remember that other four-letter Middle East country that starts with an "I," that supposedly had WMDs?
Get out of town! And take those Obama bumper stickers with you.
—Michael Swanson
BOB GRIMM'S BLU-RAY INFATUATION
Bob Grimm's Blu-Ray-centric columns in the Tucson Weekly have got to go.
Blu-Ray doesn't have a large enough market share to justify having more than two-thirds of the space devoted to them. Blu-Ray reviews are all but worthless if you don't have a Blu-Ray player, and many more people have standard-DVD players than Blu-Ray.
Grimm is one of the "converted," but do the rest of us a favor—drool over one Blu-Ray release a week, and give the majority of people who only have standard-DVD players a column that's useful to everyone!
—Robert Reynolds
OUT-OF-TOWN TUCSON TEA PARTIERS
The Tucson Tea Party needs to go, for false accusations about the Obama administration (death panels, Birthers, Nazi, etc.) and their attempt to change the town I was born and raised in.
With their constant complaints but no true answers, the majority of these so-called patriots live in the county and continue to yell and scream like childish 2-year-olds, as they did during the Giffords' town halls.
Want to be part of my town? Move into town, and have neighbors who are Arab, Asian, African American and Latino. Don't hide in your gated-communities with all your guns that you think President Obama is going to take away. We Tucsonans are nice people; we won't eat you.
Tucson Tea Party, want to belong? You have to get along!
—Alexander Monarrez-Maldonado
RAIN COMPLAINERS
A big "Get Out of Town!" to anyone who complains when it rains in Tucson—with a one-way ticket to the Atacama Desert in Chile!
—Christina Moodie
SUN TRAN TRANSIT-CENTER MUSIC
I nominate Sun Tran, though not all of it; after all, I and countless others need to get around town on public transport. As much as I love classical music, I wish Sun Tran would change their piped-in music at the transit centers.
At all of Sun Tran's transit centers, the same piece is played over and over and over and over again. It NEVER CHANGES! It's like Chinese water torture. I try my best to not go to any of the centers if I need a bus; the music just drives me 'round the bend! (No pun intended.)
I have e-mailed Sun Tran about it, but have never received a reply. The person who decided on the music needs to get out of town. I would drive him/her out myself!
—Norma Mackey
TRAFFIC SCHOOL
OK, so I got one of those lovely speeding photo tickets after going 12 miles too fast on River Road near Campbell Avenue. I decided to forgo the $215 fine and pay the $215 fee to attend my nomination to "Get Out of Town!": traffic school.
At this abomination of an excuse to fatten city coffers, I learned valuable lessons such as, "You can avoid accidents by paying attention to the road in front of you," and, "A yellow light means caution." Then there was the soul-draining statement by the instructor after 90 minutes: "I could cover this material in two hours, but by contract, I will cover it in five hours. We should be done by 11 p.m."
Is there a reason the city feels obligated to offer a class that would fail to hold the attention of a brain-dead gnat instead of just taking our money and being done with it?
—Ira Hirsh
