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Pink notoriety to be used for charity fundraising

Jessica Coomes
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 19, 2006 05:13 PM


SCOTTSDALE - Scottsdale's Pink Taco restaurant and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's pink underwear are pooling their collective notoriety to raise money for charity.

The soon-to-be-opened restaurant will sell the pink underwear, similar to those worn by inmates at Maricopa County jails.

From each $10 sale at the restaurant, $2 will go to City of Hope, a cancer research and treatment institution in California.

The rest will help fund the volunteer Maricopa County Sheriff's Posse and the posse's Youth Assistance Foundation, which does school programs, camps and other outreach for children.

Pink underwear sales so far this year have brought in about $40,000 for the posse and the foundation, said sheriff's Cmdr. Al Aldridge of the Community Services Posse.

Pink Taco got attention after Mayor Mary Manross objected to the restaurant's name, which also is slang for vagina.

The Scottsdale City Council eventually approved the restaurant's liquor license, and it opens to the public Friday.

The innuendo did not faze Arpaio, who on Monday afternoon stood outside the restaurant to announce the charity underwear sales.

He said he did not realize the Pink Taco double-meaning before the controversy.

"Is it in the dictionary? Does it say what 'pink taco' means in the dictionary?" Arpaio asked. "I go by the dictionary."

The Pink Taco story has attracted the attention of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a mock-news program on Comedy Central.

Show correspondent Ed Helms came to Scottsdale last week to film a story that is planned to air at 11 p.m. Thursday or Monday.

This is owner Harry Morton's second Pink Taco location. He opened the first in Las Vegas in his father's Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

Inside the modern Mexican restaurant Monday afternoon, Pink Taco was practicing its dishes for customers who just wandered in.

Arpaio himself tested the restaurant's signature pink taco dish and reported it was good. The pink tacos are topped with white onions that have been dyed pink with beet juice.

"This taco tastes like any other taco," Arpaio said. "There's no difference."

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