Not gays holding hands, not environmentalists passing out literature, not even someone dressed up in a giant bunny suit could spoil the opening of the LDS church’s brand-new Main Street plaza—which we hear will soon be officially named “The Li’l’ Bit O’ Paris Plaza.”
After all the flap about restrictions on free speech, smoking, topless swimsuits and thongs, the LDS church’s fall conference, which marked the opening of the plaza, saw restraint by Mormon officials. Well, hats off to them—we have to give them credit. Probably expecting some sort of protest over free expression rights, LDS officials chose not to have those making a statement dragged off or arrested. In doing so, the church came off in a nice light—perhaps the first nice light for the LDS church in the whole selling of Main Street saga.
Maybe they have a Public Relations Office at the LDS church, after all. There’s one listed in the phonebook, of course, but they never call us back. So we, here at Smartbomb, just kinda figured it didn’t really exist. I mean, if we called the LDS church Public Relations Office for a comment on something surely they would call back if there were such a thing, right? Go figure.
Speaking of public relations and the LDS church, there may be movement on the thorny issue of whether 3.2 percent beer will be sold anywhere in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Winter Games. Olympic guru Mitt Romney announced recently there would be no beer at the medals plaza, spitting distance from Temple Square. That announcement brought a groan from Mayor Rocky Anderson, who witnessed happy Aussies and their guests swilling tankards and belching at the recent Summer Games in Sydney.
One possible compromise to the standoff between the Mittster and the Rock would be to sell Zima and Tequiza on the medals plaza downtown, which, by the way, is owned by the LDS church. According to insiders, although Zima and Tequiza both contain alcohol equivalent to Colorado Kool-Aid, they aren’t technically beer. Therefore, the thinking goes, LDS officials would be more willing to swallow it (no pun intended, har, har).
Another possible compromise in the “No Beer Here” controversy would be to corral all would-be beer guzzlers in makeshift cattle pens that could be thrown up around the city. Those wishing to imbibe on 3.2 beer would voluntarily crowd into enclosures where servers with “beer guns” attached to kegs would shoot streams of lager into their open mouths.
The proposal apparently is being considered because it would save a lot of plastic cups and because the enclosures would be near the North Salt Lake oil refineries and well out of sight of the LDS Temple, which will serve as the backdrop for the medals ceremonies. Some bugs may still need to be worked out of the proposal, said Deeda Seed, the mayor’s chief of staff. No foolin’?
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