By Bear Howard
You all know Bear Howard loves meeting tourists, but let’s be honest—getting to my favorite drinking spots early in the evening during the tourist season is essential!
If you arrive before five and snag a parking spot, congratulations—you’ve hit the jackpot! Score two adjacent seats at the bar, and I call it “Sedona Musical Chairs!” When we visit our local restaurants/bars, I can’t help but notice two distinct types of drinkers: the bar stool folks—the talkers and storytellers—and the table munchers, who are much more focused on their food and the occasional small talk. I proudly belong to the former.
Last week, my wife and I secured our favorite bar stools, and the bartender delivered our regular drinks. What better way to unwind after a long workday? Dining at the bar has its perks: we don’t need to chat with each other; we have fellow drinkers on either side to entertain us. Don’t get me wrong—I love my wife, but we’ve covered almost every topic under the sun. But we have boundaries: family matters and work gossip are strictly off-limits.
We sat next to a young couple one night last week. The young man asked, “Are you a local? “Yes, I said, “Do I look like a local? Ya, he laughed you do. He went on to say the town is beautiful; we would love to move here someday! “Is there any affordable housing or apartments in Sedona? ” Note really, I quickly replied.
You see, Sedona is primarily for the older “Boomers.” To afford a home here, you had to be the second person hired by Steve Jobs’s at early Apple or belong to the “lucky sperm club.” (That’s the folks who inherited a pot of gold and/or were sent to the right preparatory schools and colleges, and were linked to influential members of their extended family or friends of their parents.)
Or perhaps, they recently sold a 2,000 sq ft three-bedroom house in California for a cool $3 million and brought an “unearned” bank with them. Oh yes, some locals retired from a big corporation with a big pension, and some built their own fortune in their enterprise. Being in the right place at the right time can be a case of the “lucky draw” in life, not the consequence of individual initiatives and “picking yourself up by your bootstraps” efforts. We don’t get to pick who our parents were and how we were raised.
“Just kidding, I said, but Sedona is a costly place to buy a home.” “Really?” My bar-stool neighbor exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Yes! The town boasts no Bitcoin millionaires—just some fortunate aging boomers who think they earned their way to Sedona.”
Most of us are just lucky post-WWII war babies! “So, where do young people live?” he asked, scratching his head. “Young people? We hardly have any!
No one knows where young professionals like firefighters, police officers, city workers, gardeners, and plumbers come from. They seem to emerge from a mythical place located west of Sedona, where legend has it there’s even a Walmart! “Of course, some of these “workers” are lucky too and bought a reasonably priced home before the prices doubled and tripled in value.”
Locals firmly believe you have to earn your way to homeownership in Sedona.” What about apartments?” he pressed. Nope! Locals won’t allow those because they might attract “those kinds of people” — undesirables like teachers, firefighters, nurses, and even practicing doctors. Remember, Sedona is not for everyone!
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, half-laughing. No, I’m serious. Earlier this month, residents voted down a two-year state-funded place for local workers living in their cars or motorhomes to park overnight. The temporary project was to be a safe place to sleep at night until city initiative affordable housing opened up. It was also an outward sign that Sedona City cares about people who aren’t loaded. It seems, in Sedona, you can’t outwardly help people under the guise of helping them!
Funny enough, Sedona residents once thought differently. Many old-timers and “workers” were forced out years ago by AirBnB’s conversions into for-profit homes and hotel rooms. It became an old west gold rush by realtors, outside investors, and local property owners to cash in and make good money while they inadvertently participated in the destruction of cohesive neighborhoods. (Except for gated, private street subdivisions.)
“Sedona is unofficially a 55+ community with no kids,” I said. And there is a fair number of residents who hate tourists so much they would be happy if Sedona became “Sun City North”
“Is that a local ordinance?” the tourist at the bar asked, wide-eyed. Nope! It’s just that most residents are well past their breeding years. We’ve become a town dominated by residents with no kids.
Dinner arrived, and we wrapped up my chat with the young couple by saying, “Don’t get me wrong— Sedona’s gorgeous, but it carries an air of entitled self-importance.”
“Those red rocks you love and think are sacred or magical are, in the end, just rocks!”
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