Mitman Neighborhood Association

By Sylvia Berman, Mitman NA president

Hi Neighbors!

Reminding you of the annual MEET & GREET which is Saturday, October 14 from 10am to noon. 5701 E. Hawthorne Street.  Councilman Kozachik and TPD have been invited. Feel free to just drop by with your $5 dues if you do not have time to stay. Otherwise, we are trying to avoid long speeches and encourage one on one conversation between residents and guests.

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Tonight is the monthly City Council meeting downtown. If you have never attended … it is quite interesting. One of the topics tonight is Code changes for smoke shops. While it may seem like this is a topic that has nothing to do with the neighborhood, THINK AGAIN!

I wrote each member of our City Council to make them aware of the impact “Head Hunter Smoke Shop” has had on this community. It is not merely a business on Speedway. The residents on 1^st Street are impacted because their properties abutt the easement. Head Hunter employees and customers like to congregate in the easement at all hours of the day and night.

Why is this business open 24 hours?

Why don’t they have working video cameras? 

These are questions I raised to the City Council. And I took the opportunity to bring up the shooting incident that started in Love Cabaret and escalated in the Head Hunter parking lot. This is an opportunity for the City Council to take a look at the business practices of all smoke shops and use the code to make them to conform to traditional businesses.

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Here is Councilman Kozachik’s weekly newletter:

https://www.tucsonaz.gov/Government/Mayor-Council-and-City-Manager/City-Council-Wards/Ward-6/Ward-6-News/Ward-6-Newsletter?article=374ebe3

by Sylvia Berman, Mitman NA President

At 2am on August 5, 2023, an altercation that started in Love Cabaret escalated into a physical fight and shooting that took place in front of at HeadHunter Smoke Shop. The participants included 1) a stripper working at Love Cabaret 2) a stripper from some other club who instigated the problem and 3) her mother. There were several additional participants.

The police report is 57 pages and dizzying. This is my understanding: Stripper #1 has an ex-husband & 2 kids. Stripper #2 took up with the ex-husband. After stripper #2 was finally thrown out of Love Cabaret for trying to fight with stripper #1, she went to HeadHunter Smoke Shop for a “puff bar.” Stripper #1 came after her brandishing a gun and making threats. After shooting her gun in the air, stripper #1 used her gun to conk Stripper #2 in the head. Mommy also jumped into the physical fight.

Neither of the cameras at HeadHunter Smoke Shop nor Love Cabaret worked. The police report mentions at least one person with an open container outside the club. Neither Love Cabaret nor HeadHunter Smoke Shop reported this incident to TPD. There were 911 reports of gunshots in the vicinity but there would not be any record of what happened except that stripper #2 found an officer at a gas station and reported the whole thing. The officer then began an investigation back at the scene. 

Love Cabaret is still trying to obtain a permanent liquor license. I have reported this incident to Arizona Liquor Control, and they have informed me they are filing a formal complaint. This is important because Love Cabaret has still not managed to acquire a permanent liquor license despite making a deal with Councilman Kozachik and City Attorney Shilpa Hunter-Patel in June of 2022. Love Cabaret has had great difficulty in complying with this agreement. Mitman Neighborhood Association has also needed to make numerous complaints.  

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TPD Division East puts out a very interesting monthly newsletter. Below is the link to the web page if you want to subscribe. Need to paste in browser.

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/AZTUCSON/bulletins/3711d6d

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A certain resident sent me an email giving me holy hell because I had not published the use of the 311 number service. There are several such links to important information at the City of Tucson that belong on our web page … but we can’t seem to find anyone to help us update it.

There are a lot of things that Mitman NA would like to do. If more people in the community volunteer to help out on our board, some of these things might just be possible. Please consider taking a turn on the board to make our community more comfortable.

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Last but not least is Councilman Kozachik’s weekly newsletter: (Need to paste in browser.) 

https://www.tucsonaz.gov/Government/Mayor-Council-and-City-Manager/City-Council-Wards/Ward-6/Ward-6-News/Ward-6-Newsletter?article=373babc

The October 2023 Mitman Neighborhood Association newsletter is available here.