Salt Lake Magazine

Often a lesser celebrated holiday than Mother’s Day, the day for dads is about more than just cliche ties. Give dad some fun this year!

Salt Lake City

Utah’s Foster Care Chalk Festival
Starting this Friday, June 14th, until Sunday Utah’s Foster Care is hosting their annual Chalk Festival at the Gateway. Starting Friday, 100 local artists will be painting the streets of Salt Lake City.  Most of the fun will be on Saturday, with food trucks, Kids Korner and live painting, but the murals will still stay for a special Father’s Day viewing. Oh also our Tastemakers event will be going on too!

Golf Nothing like listening to your Dad complain about your swing while he throws back a Top Golf tea at the “range.”  Click here to make reservations online at Top Golf in Midvale. If your dad would rather pay to play whole 18 holes, find out where to make a tee-time at one of Utah’s many golf courses here.  

Market Street Grill $5 cocktails and hand squeezed juice, your favorite Sunday Brunch but with fish (in the eggs, not the drinks.) Click here to make a reservation one of their three locations! 

WWE Live Celebrate your kick-ass Dad with some ass-kicking WWE fighters. Roman Reigns and Elias are going head to head this Sunday, 7pm at the Maverick Center. Click here for more information and tickets. 

Snowbird This Sunday from 11am-7pm Snowbird is hosting live music and BBQ for kids, big and small, and their dads to enjoy. Scenic tram ride also included. Adults: $29, Kids (7-12): $18 Click here for more info.

Park City

Red Rock Brewing To start your day you can stop by Red Rock to get $2 Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas. Red Rock will be serving their long-time favorites like classic eggs benedict, steak-and-eggs and also the beloved eggs in purgatory, a Sunrise burger or breakfast sandwich with bacon or sausage, sautéed onion, pepper and American cheese, served on a savory country biscuit. Food Coma free of charge! 

Glitretind at Stein Eriksen Lodge  If you like a little bit of everything at brunch you can take your Dad to the buffet at the Stein. You and the old man can enjoy more than two-dozen selections from breakfast staples like eggs benedict, maple-glazed bacon and breakfast potatoes and if that’s not enough they also have Nieman Ranch beef short ribs, tri-peppercorn seared salmon and much more- like Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas, I hope. 

Park Silly After grabbing brunch you can mosey on down to Main Street to enjoy the Park Silly Market. The market is open from 10am-5pm giving you and your dad some good entertainment including live music, seeing local artists, walk off that eggs benny from the morning and continue to eat some more food while you’re at it, Dad bods are IN!

Boneyard Saloon & Wine Dive- Live Music For some evening entertainment you can stop by Boneyard Saloon & Wine Dive to catch some live music. Music starts at 6:30 so be sure to get there early to enjoy some of their delicious food! 

Grub Steak – Free Dessert!  Don’t stop believing…. don’t stop eating. This long-running Park City favorite for top-flight steaks is offering dads a free dessert with any adult dinner entrée. Enjoy classics like bone-in ribeye, porterhouse, or Grub Steak’s Instagram-worthy Tomahawk Rib Eye, plus delicious seafood, sides and more.

Powder at the Waldorf Astoria, Tasting Menu, for the fancy father  If you planned ahead this Sunday for your hangover after a night out on Saturday, try doing a dinner with your dad. Powder at the Waldorf is serving a special five-course tasting menu. Swordfish prosciutto, thyme-crusted tuna, exotic mushroom cappuccino “soup,” and more, OH MY! 

Hopefully you have found something to do but if you haven’t yet check out our dining guide to take your Dad out! 

Rocky’s Way
(Or the Highway)

Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Proposition 2 supporters that could bring both efforts to legalize medical marijuana—Proposition 2 and the replacement bill, H.B. 3001—crashing down.

Anderson is asking Utah’s Third District Court to restore Proposition 2’s larger, market-led system that resembles dozens of other states and relies on a widespread private market to handle the illicit plant.

He argues the Legislature has taken too much power from the people. He also claims the Legislature does the bidding of the LDS Church, which he says has unconstitutionally “dominated” the process around the issue.

Anderson is working on a third claim that will target a vulnerable piece of the Legislature’s law. He says the law forces state and local employees to violate federal law by working in cannabis facilities.

“That to me is an absolute sure winner,” Anderson says. “For the Legislature to compel anybody to distribute cannabis is absolutely in conflict with federal law.”

Anderson sent a letter in February to more than 100 county officials, searching for a possible plaintiff to join his case. It reads like a threat: “Every dollar spent and every minute devoted to planning for the implementation of H.B. 3001 is an utter waste of precious resources because the law will never—can never—be put into operation.”

Carol almost died last year in a car crash. She uses medical marijuana as part of her pain management plan while her shattered bones heal. The 48-year-old from Weber County fears she’ll lose her job if she uses her real name. So we’ll just call her Carol. After the near-fatal car crash, her friends convinced her to try cannabis as part of her pain management plan.

She’s hoping she’ll be approved for surgery soon, but for the foreseeable future, Carol has been prescribed hydromorphone, a strong opioid medication. Cannabis products—in her case, low-THC-level droplets—help mitigate her need for the opioid and she’s been getting them from Colorado. 

“My doctor said that it helps make me more sensitive to opioids so that I can use less. I’ve been using significantly [fewer opioids] since starting to use [marijuana],” she says. 

Carol is aware of the dangers of opioid addiction, and cannabis has helped her avoid it. But getting cannabis from Colorado is difficult and, right now, a legal liability. And as she’s run out of her droplets, she’s started to take more opioids again to deal with her pain.

Last November, in a state where conservative elected leaders have mightily resisted legalizing the plant, citizens fought to create a medical marijuana program through a ballot initiative. A majority of Utah voters passed Proposition 2, allowing certain people to use medical cannabis and authorizing the establishment of state-licensed and controlled dispensaries. 

But then, state leaders and lawmakers quickly huddled to write a new law to supplant the initiative voters passed.

The resulting bill is unlike any other medical marijuana program in the country. It strictly limits access to a centralized state distribution system for a small number of private dispensaries that the law requires be designed to function like pharmacies. You won’t find any “bud tenders” named Blaze behind a Utah cannabis counter.

Meanwhile, patients in limbo have been asking doctors to write permitting letters to shield them from prosecution. Carol says her doctor is on board with her cannabis use but is afraid of writing her a letter until Utah’s medical marijuana program is assembled. There are too many unknowns, and many doctors are afraid to get involved with the federally illegal plant.

Further muddying the picture, law enforcement agencies are scratching their heads over how to respond to a marijuana bust where the suspect claims medicinal purposes but has no way to prove it. And, the law already faces a legal challenge that threatens to make even more changes and possibly reinstate Proposition 2. (See sidebar: “Rocky’s Way (or The Highway.”) 

These are the growing pains of a nascent medical marijuana program being rolled out by a reluctant state government. Patients are caught in the fog of uncertainty.

Without dispensaries in place under the new Utah Law, patients like Carol will continue buying cannabis locally the old fashioned way, through illegal dealers, or taking trips to neighboring Colorado or Nevada. On the return trip they’ll face the possibility of getting pulled over by the wrong police officer in Utah. 

While it would have taken time for a program under Proposition 2 to get up and running, the citizens’ initiative was much less restrictive than the replacement law. Patients fear that even if and when the replacement law is up to speed their access will be limited. The Legislature called for seven to 10 private dispensaries in the entire state.  Under Prop 2, it was to open eight privately run dispensaries in just Salt Lake County and at least one in every county in Utah. Arkansas, for example, has a similar population to Utah and allows 32 dispensaries. 

But the new law’s supporters say despite the hiccups it’s on the right track. 

“Everybody wants the program to work,” said Connor Boyack, an early Proposition 2 supporter and founder of the Libertas Institute, who later worked on the Legislature’s replacement law. “Whatever issues may present themselves … we’re confident that we’ll be able to work through those issues as they arise.” 

Among cannabis advocates, so few outlets is a major sticking point.

“There are supposed to be 7-10 dispensaries [and] they have to have a pharmacist on duty,” said Christine Stenquist, founder of TRUCE, the group that supported Prop 2 but didn’t agree to a compromise. “Seven dispensaries for a state this large is ridiculous…some of these counties are really, really huge. Who can drive two hours round trip for medicine?”

See all of our politics and community coverage here.