Open carry gun law and the oldest bar in Arizona

My sister, who lives in one of the small towns south of Tucson, suggested–actually insisted–that we go to Arivaca to have lunch. “Best burgers I’ve ever had”, she claimed.

So off we went over a rolling desert road where Open Range signs and cattle guards in the road appeared every couple of miles. Open Range means that ranches do not necessarily have fences around their herds of cattle and that you might run into cows on the road. And cows have the right of way. We were fortunate and did not run into any cattle ambling across the road. There was too much rare and delicious green grass on the shoulder for them to wander elsewhere.

As I drove into this tiny desert town I saw one of those 3 wheel motorcycles with no rider on board begin to roll out onto the road in front of us. I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and dashed into the nearest building which housed an office of some type and asked the woman if it was her bike. “No. Not mine.”

“Probably belongs to someone in the bar,” my sister said as we walked into La Gitana Cantina, the oldest bar in Arizona. La Gitana means “The Gypsy”. (I have to apologize here: I do not have a photo of the exterior. And the pix of Google street view is 8 years old. I spent my time catching up with my sister rather than taking pictures.)

What you don’t see in these photos are the signs at the front door stating that guns are not permitted in the Cantina and that Militia members are not welcome. (For full disclosure: I was raised in a home with guns in my parents’ closet. My father hunted every Fall and we ate what he shot over the winter.)

As I soon learned, Arivaca sits at the heart of the conflict between humanitarian aid for border crossers and the self-declared, gun-carrying Arizona Militia which happily tracks down border-crossers and holds them for the Border Patrol. Unlike at Nogales or Calexico, there is no road leading right into Mexico. And no fence. Just miles and miles of rolling desert hills and mountains.

Over lunch on the patio–the burgers were very very good–I told my sister about the strange conversation I had crossing back into Nogales AZ. The agent had asked me if I looking for work in Nogales MX. Immediately, my sister said: “He thought you were over there doing humanitarian aid.” That made perfect sense. She also explained that the People Helping People group works on both sides of the border. So that mystery is solved. And in one of those fickle finger of fate co-incidences: the building I had dashed into because of the rolling motorcycle was the Arivaca office of People Helping People.

On our way back to Highway 19, we were stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. The agent glanced in the back of the car and waved me through. Just like it used to be. A year later, not far from here, I was stopped by the Border Patrol and my car searched. Read about it here.