For my six months of waiting in SLC for the Peace Corps I got work driving for Lyft. And it was a really good, very interesting experience. I don't own a car as I'm trying to go overseas and Lyft has a rental program. They partnered up with Herze to provide cars on a weekly basis to those who are interested. And it worked well for me because since it's a week at time I can return the car whenever I was done with it. In my time driving I gave over 2,000 rides throughout the valley and the outlying areas. I got to see way more of this area in this extended trip then I had in all of my other trips to see my sister combined. I also got the chance to talk to most of those fares which gave me a really interesting inside view of what it's like to live here in SLC. The coolest part of the experience was talking to the people. I jotted down a few tidbits of conversation that I thought were true jems.
When we (my husband and self) met I was sick, on the couch, with my hair in a messy side bun, drinking red wine and said ‘What's up’ when he came in. That's how you guys do it, set the bar really low so that every time you blow dry your hair or put on lipstick is ‘va va voom baby!!’
OMG we're such good citizens taking a Lyft together instead of separate cars!!
A: Remember so and so? He's coming to dinner tonight. Did you know that he's a Trump supporter? B: No! Really?? That so surprising, he's seems so smart. A: Well he works for Fox. B: Oh, that explains it then, he's got all of those investments. The conversation then turns to protecting personal wealth and using government to do so.
(a woman giving a pep talk to someone on the phone) This is a wave, you've been through tsunamis.D Don'tlike the path your on? Trim back some bushes, make a new path.
The town board of one of the suburbs voted against a Trax station (the light rail) because it would bring in drugs
Guy in the backseat was complaining about child support, called fathers the victims of the system
Driving chefs and service staff for events in Park City (expensive ski resort town). Two were describing to the third an event the prior night at a private house which was set up as an entertainment house. It had three kitchens, one of which was the catering kitchen. When the chef who cooked at the event got to describing the drawer plate warmers the other chef went "what the fuck!! Forget the house, I just want the kitchen!!!" Apparently the catering kitchen was a cool mil alone.
A drunk couple laughingly apologizes for being drunk. Explains it's the one night in the week they both don't have kids or obligations and can get together and cut loose. So I say 'date night?' and guy goes 'that's awesome! I love your philosophy! Date night, we should totally call it that!’
In addition to these tidbits I got to learn a lot more about how things are run in Salt Lake City with the Mormon Church in charge of the government and how that affects everyday life. Things like a non-Mormon girl being assaulted by her male classmates because since she's not Mormon then she must be a slut ready to put out. Neighbors being shunned by the community, and co-workers being shunned by the office because they are not Mormons. One young woman was almost in tears just to be able to talk to someone who isn't Mormon and therefore will talk to her. She described to me how she is treated at work and in her neighborhood. At work it's expected that at some point she will quite the job to have babies, like all of the Mormon women before her. The expectation is so strong that she can't get promoted and is being hassled by the men to just leave. Also, that both the men and women seem to think it was a waste for the woman to get a degree since she won't be using it. In her neighborhood only one neighbor will talk to her, an older woman who moved into the area a couple of decades ago. This older woman converted to being Mormon to avoid the shunning and to be able to have a social network. This neighbor asks her non-Mormon neighbor, the young lady I was talking to, to smuggle her coffee over the fence because she can't let the Mormons see her breaking that taboo. This idea of shunning comes from the Mormon teaching of ‘Living in the world but not of the world.’ Basically you segregate yourself amongst your own kind and don't let yourself be tainted by the world. It's compound living without being in the compound. How that manifests in Utah is Mormons do not integrate with others or accept into their society others. If nine out of ten families in a neighborhood are Mormon then that tenth family is excluded. This one story illustrates the work and home life of this shunning but was by far not the only story of it's kind that I heard over the six months of driving people. The really shit thing is, Mormons don't care about what they are doing to other people. They just say, ‘Well lots of non-Mormons are moving into the area so it's not a big deal.’ I also got to hear about the five families that run the town. I always wondered how Salt Lake City got to be a prosperous place in the desert and the answer is copper mines. History lesson: in the 19th century the Mormons left the East Coast and headed west with all of the other pioneers. They were looking to practice as they saw fit. Came across the great salt lake and set up shop. What emerged were five families who control the church and set up the mines. Present day those families have fantastic wealth and continue to control the church as well as sitting on the boards of all of the major corporations such as the refineries, the mines, the banks, etc. Through the church these families also control the state and city government as well as being the pool of persons from which the heads of all major public office departments come from. It's cronism at it's finest. So even though the demographics of the city are changing with the influx of tech and warehouse jobs the demographics of who controls the power has not. Therefore, of those who know of this situation, no one expects any real change to occur. Change that most people would like to see includes 1. protecting the environment, mainly from the refineries. 2. Cleaning the air, mainly from the refineries and the trucks bringing in and out the huge influx of goods being passed through town. 3. The romoval of control of the church over the government and with that the removal of laws based on church doctrine which infringe on human rights and freedom of choice. Salt Lake is also an interesting outdoor haven combined with city life while at the same time the environment is not protected. Your an hour drive from downtown to the mountains. Two hours to an amazing desert with fantastic caves and ancient rock paintings. Not to mention the great salt lake and salt flats where world records for ground speed are made and broken. Downtown is small and walkable with restaurants, ballet, symphony, theater, pro basketball, and an arena bringing in Pink!, Metallica, Disturbed, etc. And if your into that sort of thing there are three landmark religious buildings, the most (in)famous being the Mormon temple but also two other very large, very impressive church building of other faiths and denominations. Meanwhile the air quality is so bad that you can't breath well if you have any kind of respirator issues and the city is expanding with no concern of how to protect the natural environment. Being in a valley the city is subject to inversion, a weather induced phenomenon where the pollution gets trapped in the valley rather than being released into the upper atmosphere. The pollution can be so bad that it will create a haze whereby you cannot see the 30 story skyscrapers of downtown from a mile away. When you live in the valley you have to pay attention to air quality reports and plan your day accordingly. Why so much air pollution? Refineries, mines, and a huge influx of semi trucks combined with Red State mentality of deregulating the EPA and giving business owners free reign to pollute without consequence. What I find amusing in a sad way is that drivers are made to feel as though they are to blame for the air pollution. Signs on the highway say to take public transport and do your part for air pollution. But the public transportation system is limited and can't get you to where you need to go most of the time. And if cars and their pollution was really such a concern to the city and state government then why don't they put in policy to bring in emission free cars and the charging stations they need? Because it's easier and cheaper to flash a sign on the highway to blame motorists. And of course you can't talk about Mormon Central with our talking about alcohol. While Mormons are known for being a dry religion and have done their best to keep prohibition in place a drinking and dining out culture has emerged. There are microbreweries, gastropubs, and the like for going out entertainment. This culture of folks buying alcohol as apart of their routine is normal everywhere I've lived except for Utah. In Utah, any divergence into the alcohol scene is the counter culture to the Mormon mainstream culture. It was more than a little bizarre to observe. Based on the Mormon religion the alcohol laws in Utah include
Every bar had to be labeled as a bar and a restaurants is also labeled as such. Each had its own set of rules, such a bar can't admit anyone underage and a restaurant has a requirement to order food on your second ordered alcoholic drink.
For example, in a hotel the restaurant had a bar in front which was open for lunch while the full restaurant in back was closed. A woman came in to eat with her daughter. Instead if sitting her in the front, open area the establishment had to open up the back restaurant because the front was a bar and the child couldn't be there. As for the requirement to order food in a restaurant, that is simply ridiculous. If I want to hangout at the restaurant bar and order a couple of drinks without food that should be my choice. But based on myth the food requirement is written into law. And yes, it is clearly more important for the legislature to spend time detailing to me what I am and am not allowed to do than to clean up the air and prevent future pollution.
All liquor bottles have to padlocked anytime the restaurant is closed. Especially the alcohol behind the bar.
Imagine a lovely wooden liquor display shelf. Now imagine it defaced with padlocks and a metal grate. Because clearly a great deal of theft or intoxication or whatever happens in Utah, but nowhere else, if you don't padlock the goods.
Liquor stores are State owned, they refuse to open more stores, and pay their employees $9/hr. To me this is dodgy and the low pay is obscene.
Pre batching alcohol is illegal. So in other places, in winter a bar might make a batch of mulled wine or cider and keep it at temp in a crock pot. That would be illegal. Other places make a pitcher of margaritas in summer for the table, but in Utah that's illegal.
Anything on tap has to be 3.2 strength or weaker. So stay away from tap beer.
Serving alcohol requires the offering of food. Some bars meet this with a food truck. One place, the local hangout for other bartenders, offers a Cup'O Noodles for $50. This is not a unique requirement but still stupid.
One bar refused to fill my water bottle with water because one, I'm not allowed to bring in outside bottles and two, someone else might think I've got alcohol in my water bottle.
That's just a fraction of the crazy alcohol laws that Utah has. So all in all Salt Lake City is a nice place to visit but don't stay for the long haul. The outdoors is a treat and downtown entertainment can be fun. But those that control the city cares more about the profits of a few than the concerns of citizens or the environment. And the church controlling government is a daily reminder that the US Constitution is not respected by this place. Salt Lake City is a place where you can't breath both literally and figuratively so stay for a long weekend then get out of Dodge.