What’s new around town.
Bicycle/pedestrian safety grant
On average, 839 bicycle/motor vehicle collisions occurred 2011-2013; 909 pedestrians were struck by motor vehicles in Utah.
The Salt Lake City Police Department recently received a $15,000 grant from the Utah Highway Safety Office of the Utah Department of Public Safety. The Salt Lake City Police Department will distribute free helmets, bicycle lights and visibility gear and conduct crosswalk enforcement, cyclist and motorist enforcement and bike safety rodeos.
Bike rodeos are cool. Unfortunately, you have to be a kid to participate. Grown-up volunteers are welcome, however.
SLC supports EPA’s Clean Power Plan
Last month SLC Mayor Jackie Biskupski joined more than 50 city and county governments from 28 states in signing an amicus brief in defense of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, estimated to reduce the pollutants that contribute to smog by more than 25%, —”a change that will benefit everyone along the Wasatch Front, especially during our increasingly dangerous winter inversion season,” said Biscupski. She asked the city’s Sustainability Department to work with mayors and cities across the Wasatch Front “to provide any resources we can to help them join this fight.”
Contribute to Utah Film Center recovery
On March 29 a 4-alarm fire destroyed the Utah Film Center office. A GoFundMe campaign is underway to help the organization recover.
The 14-year-old Utah Film Center “is not an office building,” says Laura Berbusse, development and grants manager . “We are a collection of members, artists, staff, board, volunteers, partners, and community members who believe in the incredible power of film to change the world. It will take hard work, but we will indeed rise from the ashes, stronger than we ever were.”
Learn more at www.UtahFilmCenter.org
Ken Sanders Books is not moving
Several months ago Ken Sanders announced that he would be relocating his bookshop, located at 268 South 200 East for the past 20 years, due to downtown development. The new news is that he was able to negotiate a suitable lease, enabling the store to remain in its present location for at least three more years.
Dining news
The LaSalle and Trio Restaurant Groups, whose combined restaurants include Oasis Café, Current Fish & Oyster, Under Current Bar, Stanza Italian Bistro & Wine Bar, Café Niche and the two Café Trios have merged. Their married name is Main Course Management.
Their newest endeavor, Stanza Italian Bistro and Wine Bar, opened last month in the wildly reconstructed home of the former Faustina. Joel LaSalle and Mikel Trapp’s long awaited invention comes with help from chefs Logan Crew (Current) and Phelix Gardner (Pago, Finca, Wild Grape) and operations manager Jared Young (Oasis, Faustina).
Stanza, 454 East 300 South.
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And from the Pago Group: A club license was finally granted a East Liberty Tap House by the DABC. They can now serve the 9th & 9th neighborhood lunch, brunch, or dinner or just drinks (no food required) any day of the week, indoors or out.
Finca received a seasonal version of the club license, allowing them to operate as a full bar, sans Zion curtain or food requirement; alcoholic beverages served from 10am to close!) through the end of October by which time they hope to have received a permanent club license .
Trestle Tavern This new project on 15th & 15th is in the recently closed Fresco building. It will serve Eastern European-ish casual tavern fare with cider, beer and wine on draft.
Pago is getting a new chef de cuisine: Curtis Lindley comes to SLC from Napa, California, where he was executive sous chef at Evangeline, a 4-star French & Creole restaurant.
2016 “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce“
Each year Environmental Working Group publishes its Dirty Dozen™ list for the highest number of pesticide residues on commercial produce. For the first time ever, strawberries top the list, displacing apples, which headed the list for the last five years.
Buy organic whenever possible:
strawberries
apples
nectarines
peaches
celery
grapes
cherries
spinach
tomatoes
sweet bell peppers
cherry tomatoes
cucumbers
For conventional produce, EWG’s Clean Fifteen™ highlights the fruits and vegetables least likely to have pesticide residues.
Stick to this list when going organic is not accessible or affordable:
avocados
sweet corn
pineapples
cabbage
sweet peas, frozen
onions
asparagus
mangos
papayas
kiwi
eggplant
honeydew melon
grapefruit
cantaloupe
cauliflower
What’s in a “one bin” solution?
Salt Lake City is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, recording a 6% population increase in the last census. With a forecast for continued population growth, the city faces new obstacles to a livable future. Along with addressing transportation, air quality, and housing issues, Salt Lake County must contend with arguably the least appealing issue, waste management. “The County is looking for ways to be more sustainable,” says Ashley Yoder, the sustainability manager for Salt Lake County. As part of that mission the County is reassessing its recycling program and considering a new service proposed by the private company, EcoHub.
If the County hired EcoHub, an international company based in Germany, gone would be the days of sorting recyclables into separate containers. Residents would use the “one bin” system, putting all their trash in one container. Then, the refuse would be sorted in a Material Recovery Facility (MRF).
Other counties in the U.S., including the ultra-sustainably focused Placer County, California (which has been recognized for environmental excellence by both the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure and the Environmental Protection Agency), use this type of system. Yet, there are concerns about the ease of the one bin solution. It became controversial in Houston where a backlash against EcoHub broke-out. Recycling activists pointed out that the one bin system isn’t recycling at all. Instead of using recyclable materials in new products, the one bin system turns all waste, trash and recyclables, since they are mixed, into fuel through a gasification process.
“Dirty MRF has a shady track record. Whenever you combine your trash and recyclables in one bin, contamination goes up, and the rates of recycling goes down,” says Daniel Salmon of the Utah Recyclers Alliance. Salmon would prefer Salt Lake City and County to consider this question, what problem exists with the current recycling system that a dirty MRF would solve?
Changes in the County’s waste management system, however, will not likely come soon if they do at all. Vicki Bennett, the Sustainability Director for Salt Lake City, says that they are taking their time to consider all the available options.
—Carmen Taylor
Granary’s New Brewery District
Development and, yes, gentrification continues to push westward across the tracks and into the Central Ninth and Granary Districts of Salt Lake. Local restaurants and coffee shops were the first to break the State Street barrier (Sage’s Café, Frida Bistro, No Brow Coffee) and now beer makers are gushing in. Following in the footsteps of Epic Brewing Company (825 State St), which didn’t quite make it across State but certainly paved the way for others to venture further, there is now the newly opened Proper Brewing Co. (867 Main), a followup to the popular Avenues Proper restaurant. Additionally, two other breweries are in the works for the neighborhood: Fisher Brewing Co. which plans to open their brewpub at 320 West 800 South in August, and Kiitos Brewing which plans to begin production (and on-site sales) at 608 West 700 South this early summer. A fifth potential neighborhood brewery was approved back in 2014 by the Salt Lake City Planning Commission and, though the project stalled, it remains a possible addition in the future.
There are numerous reasons that brewers are attracted to this hip Westside district. For one, the ambiance is perfect—auto garages, empty storefronts and circa 1950s bomb shelter-looking department stores. With these kinds of neighbors, rent is still low (can’t find that many other places in the city) and the large, empty buildings available can repurpose perfectly into brewing facilities—Proper Brewing Co. will be increasing from a 15-barrel operation at their Avenues location to a 120-barrel operation in the Granary. Add to that nearby apartment construction, an influx of young residents and flexible zoning, and despite the DABC’s bogus crackdown on sin at nearby Brewvies, the Salt Lake City Council appeared eager to encourage drinking in Zion when, last December, they approved a zoning amendment changing how breweries are classified and expanding the places where breweries can locate.
—Katherine Pioli
Coffee lessons learned from the music business
If you remember the cute coffee cart that perched daily on the patio of Liberty Heights Fresh last fall, you’ll be happy to know it found a small nest downtown—not much bigger than a coffee cart but more suitable for the changing seasons. In January, owners Nick Price and Meg Frampton moved their fledgling business, called Three Pines, to the small space adjoining From Scratch on 62 E. Gallivan Avenue.
Both musicians from SLC, they spent many years in Los Angeles to pursue music, and came back to Salt Lake in August with big plans to open a coffee business.
Nick and Meg’s time spent in Los Angeles was key to their way into the craft coffee scene, however not necessarily on purpose. While both were playing in bands, Nick took a side gig at specialty coffee shops Handsome Coffee Roasters (now Blue Bottle Coffee Co.) and Blacktop, both in the arts district of downtown LA. Traveling to coffee conventions and regional barista championships, at which Nick would judge, the couple was devoting a lot of energy to coffee. Nick’s side job to pay the bills was becoming their main event.
It was in July 2015 when Meg’s mom planted the seed for them to start their own coffee business in Utah. “Looking back, all the things that happened in LA led up to this. More of our time was spent in coffee shops than music venues. We didn’t know it, but we were doing market research for years. Once my mom put that idea in my head, it made sense.”
With not a lot happening for their music careers at the time, plans for their mobile coffee cart quickly got under way. Nick constructed the cart himself. Being in bands for so long, the pair remarked on how long it could sometimes take to get all band members’ schedules aligned, but when it was just Nick and Meg, they could move as fast as they wanted. The coffee cart took flight in August 2015.
Nick remembers the community vibes at Handsome Coffee and while on tour. They plan to acquire their own, larger space when the time is right. “We hope to have brew classes and acoustic night. Those things are really important to us… We miss doing that.”
As Three Pines gains a following, they realize how their time spent in music helped prepare them for owning a small business. One of their bands, Meg & Dia, which also included Meg’s sister, was together for 10 years. From playing at a bar for six people, to having their music videos played on MTV, they don’t seem worried that their shop currently seats only two people at a time.
“Having that experience of starting out small and growing a loyal fan base showed me that no matter how many [fans] you have in the beginning, it’s going to take time until you see success. Trust in what you’re doing and keep moving forward.”
The wisdom they gleaned from their music careers: You have to start small. The lesson I learned from talking with Meg and Nick: Sometimes mom’s crazy ideas might actually make a lot of sense.
—Sophie Silverstone
Yoga Studies program at USU
A new program at Utah State University will move yoga out of the gym and into the classroom. The new USU Yoga Studies and Teacher Training program begins the fall of 2016.
The program’s learning objectives include yoga as a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and ethical discipline, with study of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, The Upanishads, and The Bhagavad Gita.
Camille Litalien and Emily Perry are co-directors of the program. Faculty includes Dr. Ravi Gupta, Director of Religious Studies at USU. Gupta lectures around the world on topics related to Vaishnava philosophy and Hindu devotional traditions.
For curriculum, costs, faculty and registration: yoga.usu.edu/
Dalai Lama in SLC June 21
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet will speak at the University of Utah Huntsman Center, 1825 S. Campus Drive, Tuesday, June 21, at 1:30 p.m.
The Dalai Lama was scheduled to visit the U in October 2015 but canceled after doctors advised him to take complete rest. Following prostate treatment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and a period of rest, the Dalai Lama is back on the road.
The theme of the Dalai Lama’s presentation will be compassion and universal responsibility followed by a Q&A session. Doors to the Huntsman Center open at 11 a.m. Prior to his address at 1:30 p.m., a cultural program will be presented by the the Utah Tibetan Association. All proceeds from the event go to the association to benefit the Tibetan Community Center.
Student and faculty tickets are sold out. Tickets to the general public are available for $30-35 plus $2 fee. The event will be streamed live at utah.edu/live. utahtickets.com
#MeditatetheVote – The Real Conversation
May has been declared National Meditation Month and the America Meditating Radio Show has started a grassroots movement called MeditateTheVote—The Real Conversation. Amidst this contentious political climate, the hope is that #MeditateTheVote acts as a subtle tool to create more trust and partnership with others and to unite the country for the greater good. The effort will continue through elections on November 8, 2016.
“Meditate the Vote is about having real conversations and giving us space to think higher and deeper about what matters the most and preparing ourselves with real tools to engage in a better self and country,” according to the website. We are invited to engage these questions:
Are you powerful enough to affect change?
What do you value the most about America?
Do you believe in your self-worth? And, how does your life model that belief?
Is there a way for us to engage in conversation without creating separation or division? If so, how?
Various meditation-related suggesions are offered. These are our favorite:
Commit to a regular meditation practice in May—weekly, twice a week, daily—decide and then do it. Maybe you will continue.
Get outside. Meditate in nature – a park, a beach, a forest or a field.
Hold a higher intention for the self and country every day.
Meditate before going to the voting booth, then cast your vote.
AmericaMeditating.org