St. George • Members of the municipal council met Thursday evening to consider scrapping the city’s sponsorship of the Downtown Farmers Market.
Once again, furor over a drag event is prompting the City Council’s action. Backed by the Liberty Action Coalition and the anti-vaccination group Your Health Freedom Dixie, Councilwoman Michelle Tanner is opposing fee waivers for the market.
The City Council forced St. George City Manager Adam Lenhard to resign in October.
Lenhard was forced to leave when he balked at the City Council’s demand to cancel the permits for the HBO “We’re Here” show at a city park last summer. He was later awarded a confidential $625,000 settlement to avoid legal action for wrongful termination.
At issue in the latest flare-up is a Christmas drag photo booth that took place at Mofaco — short for Modern Farm and Artisan Co-op — a store in St. George at a Small Business Saturday event on Thanksgiving Day weekend, the same day as the weekly Downtown Farmers Market at Vernon Worthen Park. The market and Mofaco are owned by the same people.
Performers contracted by Southern Utah Drag Stars operated a booth at Mofaco, where patrons could have their pictures taken with a woman dressed up as Mrs. Claus and two male elves in drag. Visitors were encouraged to leave a tip in a jar. The booth was situated in a small section at the back of the store and was screened off by a curtain from the storefront and public view, according to the store owner.
(Ashley Tiller) The storefront of Mofaco in St. George. After drag performers operated a booth at the store during holidaytime, members of the municipal council are meeting this afternoon to consider scrapping the city's sponsorship of Downtown Farmers Market, which is also run by the store owners.
Tanner declined to comment on the drag booth to The Tribune, but her comments on social media sites leave little doubt about where she stands. Since Farmers Market and Mofaco share common ownership, and the city has waived fees for the market to use the park, Tanner is blasting the owners for promoting all-age drag shows at taxpayer expense.
“We aren’t just talking about a private business holding a drag event at their leisure,” Tanner said in a post on Liberty Action Coalition’s Facebook page. “Fact is, most people don’t care if you want to hold a drag event at a private venue (away from children), but when you start promoting mature behaviors in front of children while using a taxpayer-funded event to promote it, I take issue with that.”
In a separate post, Tanner commented on parents who bring children to drag events.
“There are unfortunately parents out there who put their own desires to have a twisted woke badge of honor that msnbc [sic] told them makes them relevant over the well-being and health of their children,” she said.
Others also weighed in on the Liberty Action Coalition site.
“I and THOUSANDS like me DO NOT care what you do behind closed doors but we want you to STOP destroying our young children,” April Pinkston said in her post. “Your shows are FILTH and anyone that takes their children should have their parent card shredded. Your god is transsexual but my God wasn’t joking when he wiped S&G [Sodom and Gomorrah] off the map! Keep spitting in the wind and tugging on superman’s cape and one day...S&G will seem like a picnic.”
Sodom and Gomorrah are wicked biblical cities God ostensibly destroyed by fire. The Liberty Action Coalition was recently listed as a far-right extremist organization.
Fee waivers, not cash
Kat Puzey, co-owner with Ashley Tilley of the farmers market and sole owner of Mofaco, says the rhetoric is as inaccurate as it is inflammatory. She noted that her farmers market does not receive any cash from the city, but does benefit from nearly $50,000 in annual fee waivers — $400 weekly for use of the park, $150 weekly for a special event license and a $5 weekly sub-licensing fee vendors would have to pay.
She added the waivers her market receives are the same or less than what other Utah cities grant to farmers markets in their municipalities and enables her to keep booth prices low for local farmers, startups, and artisans who otherwise could not afford to sell their wares.
She said the market and store have separate budgets and staff. As for the Mrs. Santa drag photo booth, she said she let them use the space in her store because she thought it would be cute to have a Mrs. Claus booth.
(Ashley Tiller) From left, Danielle McCracken, Ashley Tiller and Kat Puzey. Tiller and Puzey are the co-owners of Mofaco and the St. George Downtown Farmers Market.
“It was just a booth. There was no performance, no banter, no stripping, said Puzey. “Mofaco did not pay them. No portion of … Downtown Farmers Market sales went to them. It was an optional choice [for patrons] in the back of a private business.”
Contrary to assertions made on social media, Puzey said ads for the booth were confined to Mofaco’s Facebook page and newsletter and were not put on the Downtown Farmers Market Facebook page or in printed ads organizers handed out.
Puzey traces her troubles with the city to when Your Health Freedom Dixie began selling copyrighted anti-vax videos, books, and T-shirts it did not craft or produce at its booth last September. Market rules require artisans to create the art or craft the wares that they sell.
On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving and three days before Small Business Saturday, she received a call from Marc Mortensen, assistant city manager of operations, informing her that some council members were concerned about the drag event. Once she explained the nature of the booth and the fact that it would be held in a private business, she added, he seemed fine with it.
But the situation escalated in what Puzey terms a “coordinated misinformation campaign” on social media accusing her of taking excess profits off the market, staging drag shows on city property at taxpayer expense and discriminating against groups who held views with whom they disagreed.
At Farmers Market events in December, Puzey and Tiller said, members of Your Health Freedom Dixie began protesting and disrupting the market, accusing organizers of discrimination.
She also was required to hand over her business and financial records to the mayor and council members. For the record, Puzey said, she is about “$5,000 in the hole” from the market. Then, on Monday, she and Tiller were informed council members would meet Thursday to consider not renewing their six-month sponsorship of the farmers market, which has been held each week at Vernon Worthen Park since September.
If the council votes to end St. George’s sponsorship, it could sound the death knell for the weekly event, which has been a mainstay in St. George since its founding in 2007.
“If we lose this sponsorship, then we have to fundraise $50,000 to try and cover what we just lost before we can reopen,” said Puzey, who bought the business four years ago.
Since buying the farmers market, its size has nearly doubled, going from about 30 vendors in Ancestor Square in St. George, where the event used to take place, to more than 100 vendors on a good weekend at Vernon Worthen.
Mayor Michele Randall and Councilwoman Dannielle Larkin say losing the market would be a tragedy. Randall said characterizing a drag photo booth as a taxpayer-funded drag show is a “huge stretch.”
“It happened in a private business,” the mayor said. “We shouldn’t go in and tell anybody what they can and can not do in their own private business.”
Larkin said the city’s sponsorship and fee waivers help “incubate small artisan and farmers in the community who can’t afford a space or store of their own.
“If you’re testing out a new food product, that can be really challenging if you don’t have a space to do so in an affordable manner,” she added. “By sponsoring the market, we are really benefiting our entire economy.”
Other council members, however, worry the city is essentially picking winners and losers by sponsoring the market and enabling one group to monopolize use of the park at the expense of other groups.
“My big concern is we have to look at all the city parks,” Councilwoman Natalie Larsen. “Why are we setting a precedent of letting one organization monopolize a city park for a full year?”
Council members say they have been receiving hundreds of emails from residents on both sides of the issue. At deadline, the council meeting was still in progress.
