Cox Waffles on ICE, Sundance Ticket Mess, Kimchi & Coffee

Today on CityCast Salt Lake, anger over state-sanctioned violence is spilling from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City. We talk about it. Plus, we all went to Sundance. Here are our dispatches and some local shoutouts. It's Tuesday, January 27th. I'm Ali Viata, and here is what Salt Lake's talking about. Executive producer Emily Means, good morning. Good morning, Allie. Newsletter editor Therina Ria, good morning. Morning. Okay. Let's start with the tough stuff and work our way into the lighter stuff this morning. The state of Utah and its residents are responding to a second killing of a civilian in Minneapolis at the hands of ice. I didn't make it to the protest on Sunday. Full disclosure, I was up in Park City all weekend. Did either of you go? What was the vibe? Yeah, I was there. All things considered, I think, vibes were good. There were thousands of people there. And I think when people show up in numbers, you can't help it feel galvanized. And, you know, it's a very small, like, city. You run into all your buds. And it's nice to see people there that you know supporting the cause. Yeah. Good energy. The protest actually ended really close to my house, so I just kind of popped over. They started marching from the Bennett Federal Building on State Street, and they ended at the immigration office off 6th and I think 2nd East, which was interesting to me because, one, no one was there. at the immigration office on Sunday. And two, you know, like this is the building where people go in for their green card interviews and to become naturalized as citizens. So to me, like it didn't exactly feel like the... anger and energy around the protest was directed like at the right building necessarily i don't know t if you also felt like that kind of cognitive dissonance yeah i felt that too it also was like salt lake city on a sunday which is based it's a ghost town anyway so it didn't seem like we were disrupting as much as we maybe could have if it was like a weekday. But I liked the speakers that spoke. Our friend of the pod, John Arthur, spoke. Great speaker. He's a great speaker. He talked a little bit about like just how difficult it is to like explain what's happening to our country to your kids. Yeah. And I like as a 35 year old can barely grasp what's happening. So like having, thinking about having to explain that to a kid is like horrible.

I want to say that I am writing a know your rights guide in the newsletter today. It has like links from the ACLU of Utah on what you can do if you're being detained or if you're a bystander. I think like things like this really help me personally when I feel just like overwhelmed and afraid. It really helps me to like be informed and it might help you too. Totally. Yeah. I mean, what have we heard from the people with power in our state? Oh, great question, Allie. And this is, we had talked about this. Briefly, Jesus, just last week, two weeks ago when Renee Good was shot and killed by an ice agent, and we hadn't seen much response at all from our Utah leaders. This time we have from our U.S. Senator Mike Lee, our senior senator, shared conspiracy theories on Twitter that we won't be repeating here. Senator John Curtis said something about how we don't have the full set of facts yet, which is why we rely on a legal process. He says, until the facts are fully known, we should lead with empathy, restraint, and respect for the rule of law. Interesting take. And then Governor Spencer Cox talked about how the rhetoric and the temperature in our country is too high. And he says that federal efforts to enforce immigration law are welcome and necessary. And yet we must not lose sight of the transparency and accountability that Americans expect. So, I mean. Yeah. Do those take surprise you two? No. This is their president. This is an administration that they have full-throatedly endorsed. And now, you know, we can see with our own eyes this agenda being carried out. And they're a little bit backed into a corner is my read. Yeah. But like that's, they have no one to blame but themselves. And very little bravery on display here from either of these individuals. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, like, I guess there's a little bit of nuance in Curtis's and Cox's responses where they're kind of like, oh, yeah, this is looking really bad, but we can't come out fully and say, this is really bad and unacceptable. They're really trying to tow the line here. Of course, Senator Mike Lee is just a total loss cause at this point. But I think it's interesting to kind of see the.

the politics at play here in the face of something that seems very obvious to all of us. I mean, there's footage from both. shootings, both killings and what we're hearing from the Trump administration is in direct contradiction to what we can see with our own eyes. And our Republican leaders are having to figure out how to how to frame it and kind of play both sides. I don't think that these men are coming from this point of view, but maybe they were doing it strategically so that we can keep the ICE agents out. as many as possible because it seems like they are deploying because Minnesota and their leaders are standing up strong to the federal government and ICE agents. And they're like, well, we're going to send you everything we got. So maybe they're thinking about it that way. Yeah. We've heard that too from like the Salt Lake City Council that their lack of sort of action has been because they fear that taking action will incur, you know, more action from the federal government. Though it does seem like this is the national strategy. And so like we should expect that this will be a city-by-city effort. I just have no reason to believe that the federal government isn't interested in bringing this level of violence to every city in America. Well, and I'll just say at the same time, I mean, this is an update on a story that we... covered last week, but, you know, we had heard rumors that a local real estate group was in talks to sell or lease their property on Salt Lake City's west side to the Department of Homeland Security to serve as an ICE detention center. We've now heard directly from the property owner that they have no plans to sell or lease their property to the federal government. But what we did hear from Spencer. Cox, our governor, is that he would still welcome such a, such a facility. So, I mean, to your point, like, are they a little nervous about ice coming and, you know, invading the streets of Salt Lake City? It seems to me that Governor Cox would welcome. more of their presence here, at least in terms of, you know, having a detention facility. And with that, I would only imagine that it would bring more, more agents, more, more staff to our city. Well, and ICE is very much already invading the streets of Salt Lake City. I think that's an important thing to remember. We saw someone being dragged out of the Salt Lake City Airport months ago. We, you know, but I also, I think the thing for me that's like happening in all of this is that I'm kind of frustrated by a lot of reactions to this because, I mean, what we're witnessing from ICE is state sanctioned violence.

But the truth is that we live in a country that allows state sanction violence. And I just think there are those of us who are watching all of this footage and feeling like there's a desire to reassemble the world that we've had, you know, to go back to the way things were, to have ice but not shooting, you know, white civilians in the street edition. And then there are people who see this footage and are like, this is a systemic problem. We are policed by armed militias in this country all the time. And we have to build a better world. And I think it is important to remember that in broad daylight, in October, in Salt Lake City, a police officer shot and killed a day laborer in the street who had nothing but a rock in their hand. Like that is the world we live in. And so this doesn't feel very different from me. I can't detangle them, disentangle them. Salt Lake City's police budget up 60 plus percent since 2020, the year that we famously asked to revisit these systems. So I worry when we... become enraged about a singular incident like this, that it doesn't help us actually build a better world because then what we get is a slew of comments that are like, oh, let's go back to the way it was. No, the way it was is that assault like city police officer shot and killed a daylabor in broad daylight outside the Home Depot months ago. And no one had anything really to say about it. I know. It's true. There was like hardly any like. protests or vigils or people gathering or enraged about that no it's a real problem and the police report to the mayor the police report to the city council so if the city council is like suddenly acting like they have been guardians against systems like this that to me is just patently false Yeah. I mean, on the note of ICE, I did want to mention what, well, Was attempted at the state level just last week during the first week of the legislative session. Huge surprise to me that this bill was even heard. This was from Democratic Senator Nate Bluin. And it was dubbed the ICE out bill. It was debated in committee. It would have banned local state and federal agents from wearing masks. It also would have prevented state and local police from helping ICE in...

areas like churches and, you know, child care spaces. And Republicans voted to hold it in committee, which means it will probably never be heard from again. Frankly, I was surprised that it even got a hearing at all. But I think it does show, you know, what the appetite for change and actually responding to these both national events and what we're seeing here in our own state. It shows what is... actually being considered. And I think it's very, very limited at that level. Yeah. I want to say quickly, so I've been volunteering with the Salt Lake County Immigrant People's Agenda campaign for weeks now to help get these no-ice-allowed signs in local businesses. If you're a local business or an individual who wants to take part in that, you can actually just go to CU-Utah.org slash action items and download the signs. You can print them yourself at the library for free if you want. There's materials there that differentiate the different kinds of warrants. that ICE officers are shopping around when they show up at businesses so you know what your rights are as a business owner and can make certain risk assessment based on your legal rights, tons of good resources there, know your rights cards, et cetera. And I think at this point, like, if you've got some friends and neighbors who want to organize together with you and go get these signs and businesses in your neighborhood and materials out, you can just do that. Yeah. And I have to give one more plug to our colleagues in the Twin Cities. Twin Cities is one of our newest city cast cities here. Follow them for on the ground coverage of what's happening in Minneapolis. If that's something that you're interested in, I mean, geez, it's like every single podcast episode, every single newsletter, every single post on their social, on their Instagram recently has been about what's happening there. And it is really... horrifying, but I have to shout out our friends and peers for their work in this.

executive producer emily means newsletter editor terina ria it's the last dance that's what everyone is calling this sundance which i imagine if you are the sundance film festival you don't like that that was okay wasn't that the title of the doc the bulls jazz doc right okay Got it. But the vibes have been interesting. So Emily, you saw a movie Friday night. Thedina, you saw a movie on Saturday. I've been up in Park City Friday to Sunday. Let's talk about what we've seen and heard. Yeah. I want to start with you standing now because you saw the movie that everybody wanted to see, which is the Charlie X-CX movie, The Moment. I know. I can't believe I got in. Me either. It was like. A Sundance miracle, honestly. And it was actually, it was Friday night, the premiere. But yeah, both me and Cass were able to get in just like by some dumb luck. Did you dress up as Charlie X, X, X, X. Is that what happened? I thought that was your strategy. But we were in like such a rush after we got our number on the wait list that we were like, we gotta get out, we got to go. But Cass does have a shy girl wig. She was shy girl for a Halloween one time. But we couldn't dig it up. We had no time. Yeah. But I can't believe you got in on the wait list. I assumed you had tickets. No, we got in on the wait list. Holy moly. So we, to be fair, we are members of the beehive. So we've played this game before. We know how to get impossible tickets. And we just, we just had. multiple screens up and we just worked fast. And we were able to get number 10 on the wait list, which was crazy. And Cass, mine, it said full, sorry, full. And then Cass was like, it was able to get number 10 and have a companion on her. So we were 10 and 11. Wait, can I just say I just realized what you meant by the Beehive. You mean that you're huge Beyonce fans. And so you've, you've tried to get tickets to her concert before. Which if anybody knows. Yeah. It's like the Taylor Swift kind of Beyonce tickets, they're impossible to get. And it's like you're in a queue, you're waiting kind of thing. But yeah, we were able to get a wait list tickets. We went there and there were a ton of people on the wait list, like hundreds of people in the wait list. It was intense. But it was great. So what happened was the movie good? Yeah, the movie kind of got panned by the critics. You got to tell us. Was it worth it? Tea! I think it was worth it. For me, I was able to see this silly mockumentary while Charlie is like in the theater and they came up on the stage afterward for a Q&A and it just was a part of the silliness of it all. And the movie is kind of breaking down.

fame and like how it's just so silly. And it's like de-emphasizing fame. And she's basically saying this is the end of my brat era in the film. And she kind of said that in real life too. She's ready to move on. And so that was fun. And she was in three movies at Sundance this year. Oh my God. The hottest star at Sundance. Right. Okay. Bringing up the wait list is so interesting because. One of the things that I have heard a lot about is how many people are getting turned away from Sunday and screenings this year on there. It's always been like, you know, people show up 10 minutes before the movie. They don't need to be, no, they need to be there 30 minutes before to get in. If you're a ticket holder, et cetera, et cetera. But it seems really chaotic this year. I saw a Reddit thread about... People getting turned away from the Olivia Wild movie The Invite. And the Reddit allegations are 100 people who had tickets turned away. Oh, my God. I've seen allegations of 15 to 20 people in Salt Lake City screenings being turned away. And that is like the talk of the press and industry tent of at Sundance is like, can you believe how oversold things are? And the fury has escalated to now there's a Reddit thread of people saying, dispute the charge on your credit card if you buy a ticket and don't get in. And talk of a class action lawsuit. Oh, my God. What a worst case scenario. Worst case scenario. But I will say, full disclosure, I was at this kind of brunch and the director of the festival was there. And it was a brunch held by a ticketing platform. And he kind of made this joke that was like, you know, the ticket problems, you guys get it. And it was a room full of other festival organizers. Yeah. And I think the other festival organizers were like, I don't know that we do. Like, don't drag us down with you. Like we don't. You're an insider. Do they, is that what they normally do? Like what? They like kind of oversell a show. Well, I think. It's like a Delta flight. It is tough. It is a balance, right? Which is why they, it is, I think a lot of people who buy a ticket get frustrated because they're like, I'm used to, if I have a ticket to a movie, I can get to the movie 10 minutes before, 10 minutes after, and I have a seat. But because Sundance has tickets that they sell, then they've also got to hold a certain number of seats for people who have passes where they just get to walk into anything. And then they also hold a number of seats for like the film make, like the production company or the like publicity firm gets tickets. And then they have a wait list. So yeah, if you have a ticket and like you don't show up when they start seating, your seat could go to somebody on the wait list. But these have to be, I mean, pretty oversold for that many people to be turned away. I just don't know. I truly do not know the inside of their ticketing platform. But I know that people are mad, especially Utahans who are like, I mean, if you're a couple, you got a babysitter, you spent $70 on two tickets. Yeah. You get there and you get turned away from the movie. I think you're like, good riddance. Yeah. You have got it. See you never. See you never. Okay. Nice. Well, I think that plays a part because, um.

These might have been like in smaller theaters. The moment was in the Echols Theater, which is the biggest venue at Sundance. So it's like a 1,200 cedar or something. So I think that the ones that were being turned away were at these smaller venues, which like still sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Eccles is huge. Yeah. Well, I'll just say I had a ticket to the lake. at Rose Wagner. I saw it in Salt Lake City. And this is the doc about Great Salt Lake. It was directed by a local filmmaker, Abby Ellis. And I kind of went into it being like, okay, I know a lot about Great Salt Lake. Am I going to be bored? But actually... This was a beautiful film. And it follows two scientists who we've talked about on this podcast a lot, Dr. Bonnie Baxter from Westminster and Dr. Ben Greg Abbott from BYU, as well as the Great Salt Lake Commissioner, Brian Steed, who we've also had on this podcast. And I actually did learn some new things. So first of all, we've talked a lot about the toxic dust coming up from the lake bed, right? I learned that the dust hangs in the air for up to two weeks. which is horrifying to me. And also just really shocking to see that aerial footage of a dust storm here because we kind of live in the mix, right? So I think it's harder for us to really understand the scope of the storms, but they had this really great drone footage of the dust coming in from the lake. And it was shocking. The other thing that was really interesting to me was to see the politics at play behind the scenes. This is really like what we don't. we're not privy to on a day-to-day basis, right? So, for example, Ben Greg Abbott, an esteemed scientist, he signed on to the petition to make the fall rope, a little bird out at the Great Salt Lake, an endangered species, right? And we've talked about that on this show as well. And there was this conversation between, like, him and Bonnie Baxter and also Brian Steed talking to other people about this that, like, him signing on to the petition would diminish his credibility as a scientist in doing this work because he'd be hitching his wagon to these activists. So I don't know. I just found it really fascinating. And on top of that, the governor was in the audience. Josh Mitt Romney was in the audience. Some power players here. I think Scott Anderson from Zion's Bank. With Leo DiCaprio there? Leo DiCaprio was not there, even though he was a producer on this. And so anytime Cox was on screen, I would just, like, look over and watch him and see, like, how he was responding. Because at the beginning, he said some things that I think were not very palatable to the audience. They had a clip of him talking about praying for rain and, like, kind of negating what scientists have said about how many years we have until we're in absolute chaos. I don't think he got booed, but he did get laughed at. And so I just, like, looked over at him. He was totally stoned face. He's used to that. He got a good ass. he did get a good at it yes in the end cox always gets a good like it's so funny because I feel like as people who live under his regime like when people from New York are like oh I like your governor I'm like he always gets a good at it yeah and in the end like he comes out and he's like I really think that we've dropped the ball on this and to his credit he did

come up and participate in the Q&A. So, you know, not necessarily the friendliest audience to Governor Cox. These are people who are. you know, mostly liberal, I would guess, people who are really involved in the lake, really interested in, you know, supporting the environmentalist community. And what he did say was that in the next six months, there will be big investments in the lake from the state and other places. question mark, that dwarf what we've previously seen. So he broke a little bit of news there. Is that what he answered in the Q&A? That's what he told us. Yeah. I mean, people asked him about like how he was going to get the legislature on board and what else. I wanted to ask him about whether he would stop growing alfalfa and switch over to wheat. But they cut the Q&A before where I could raise my hand. They saw your ass in there and said, cut the mic. Nope. Nope. So, yeah, I mean, I think that that is a big question right now while the legislature's in session. What kind of investment will they make in the lake? And Cox is saying that we should expect a big one. So TBD. Yeah, we'll see. Allie, round us out. Would you see? Would you see it's Sunday? I'm just like, I, so here's what I'll say. The. I mean, it's never a surprise to see an excellent documentary at Sundance. The documentary film program at Sundance has long been their strongest. And a lot of people go see features because they have the celebs. They have, they like attract the hype. But I think it's notable that one, two, three, four, five documentaries are nominated for best documentary at the Academy Awards this year. And all five of them premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year. So. you know on the talk about sunnance and the ticketing and all the things about them that frustrate us i think that is really worth noting yeah that's incredible um so yeah i saw uh a couple things that i really loved but here are some some notes that i made one thing that's notable 90-minute movies, y'all, almost everything that I've seen has been under two hours. In fact, everything I've seen has been under two hours. I saw an 88-minute movie. I was like, I'm going to faint. I'm in heaven. Yeah. Why do they have to make everything three to four hours long? Yeah. So a lot of 90-minute movies. I did see two things I've seen that I absolutely loved. One, I did see the Olivia Wild movie The Invite. It is fantastic. And I'm thrilled because I love her. And I think she's an amazing director and actor. And I was really sad about Don't Worry, darling, which, of course, we all saw together. Dang. Oh. Never forget. It was a CityCastelling team outing. And we haven't had one since. I needed to believe it was a one-off. And this movie confirms for me that it was. She is massively talented. So that's fun. No sales yet.

As of recording right now, nothing at the festival has sold, which is kind of unusual, but indicative of the economy run. Right. I saw a documentary called The History of Concrete that is stone on its face. I heard a lot of buzz around this. Uh-huh. Yeah. This is the John Wilson movie. So John Wilson is the guy who hosted that, like, how-to series on HBO. He's really funny. And... This documentary is so fantastic. It's basically the premise is that he's like, went to this seminar on how to pitch a movie to Hallmark, which as a Utah and I found really delightful because he films the seminar and shows you the highlights. And like what Hallmark looks for and like all the like arc of a Hallmark movie and stuff. And so then he decides to try and like figure out how to get someone to fund his documentary about the history of concrete if he makes it like the arc of a of a Hallmark movie. That's so cool. The footage is crazy. It's super smart. It's super fun. But. It also, my friend Megan, who I saw it was said something after that I thought was so interesting and appropriate, which is that you watch that movie and you're like, on its surface, it's like funny and clever. But more deeply, it is a documentary about how art is not in trouble. Like we have so many artists. Art is amazing. Art has maybe never been more beautiful and like vast and interesting, but art's relationship with money is in trouble. And like the things that we are choosing to fund. And like while I was at Sundance, we found out that like Vimeo, which has long been the like the platform for short films and whatever, you know, acquired by a private equity firm, laid off a bunch of their staff. there were was someone who showed me a screenshot of now if you google vimeo it says an AI powered platform so like it was just like all these things are in conversation at the festival and that's why it's i think so interesting as a marketplace but like yeah like films movies relationship with money is bad and that's the part of the industry that makes it feel like the art is dying yeah Okay. The K-shaped economy. The K-shaped economy is alive at Sundance. I want to talk about what a homework arc is and how they use it in the documentary. Do they return to their hometown? Apparently, according to this presentation, returning to your hometown is out.

Oh, really? They no longer want you returning to your hometown. They want something different. Oh, because it's kind of been done before they're trying to switch it up at homework. That's fun. Yeah. One of the things that they said was like, At the core, there has to be a sense that there's one small problem to solve. And if that one small problem is solved, then everything will be okay. Oh, and also the woman said bonus points if there's a large event to plan. I know if there's a wedding or a funeral. And also your Christmas movie has to be completely detached from religion. No mention of God or spirituality. Really? I'm surprised Hallmarks moving in that direction. Uh-huh. Santa only. Yeah. Exactly. Or a hot snowman. Planning the town party. Holiday. Holiday only.

Executive producer Emily Means newsletter editor Thedina Ria. On Tuesday, we do shoutouts. Thedina, what do you got? So my shout-out is a food pop-up that's happening this week. So I've talked about ju-ju kimchi before on our monthly guide. It's a new family-owned brand of kimchi that's based out of Provo. And they've done a few pop-ups so far, so far, but this will be their first one in Salt Lake City. It's on Friday between 7 to 9 p.m. at J.J. Coffee, which is also a new coffee shop that originated in Utah County. This is the one for them. Uh-huh. Yeah, from Orum. And they'll have food and drinks and treats, so you'll want to come hungry. Somebody tell all these like, you know, out-of-staters at Sundance that the hottest coffee shop in Utah is from Orum. That would blow their minds. They're, they're, J.J. Coffee is teaming up with Howie Mandel. They're doing a partnership with it. They're blowing up. They are blowing up. I mean, I'm just thinking coffee and kimchi, you are going to have a really successful bowel movement later. Exactly. It's going to be really good if you've been stuffed up. Yeah, you are. Emily, what about you? Okay, I got to do a quick plug for our 1,000 things we love about Salt Lake giveaway. This is part of our 1,000 episode celebration. We are giving away $1,000 in gift cards to some of our favorite Salt Lake restaurants. So head over to our Instagram at Citicast, SLC. All you got to do is follow us there. like the post, and comment something you love about Salt Lake. So that giveaway closes February 4th. Get on in there and have dinner on us. Love it. There you go. A thousand dollars. That's so much. A thousand buckaroos. All right, Allie. What do you got? Okay, I've got a quick one. So my shout out is to the Natural History Museum of Utah, which aside from being an architectural marvel is, I think, a real gem in our community. And they do this lecture series every year, which is fabulous. But I saw that... Among the series for 2026. Now, this event isn't until April 14th, but you can actually snag free tickets now. Nice. Is a roundtable discussion of microplastics. Oh.

I know. And this is like what natural history museums are for. Yeah. Because I will tell you, I can barely tell you what microplastics are, but I know that I'm scared of them. Yeah. And I know I have a spoonful of microplastics in my brain right now. Exactly. They're in there. So I think the idea of getting together with some actual scientists so that they can explain to me what microplastics are, where they are, what the consequences are, et cetera, et cetera, sounds really fun. And again, it's totally free. So you can find me and two PhDs and a researcher really thinking deeply about microplastics on April 14th. Love that. Wait, would you say you're moderating this? No, no, no, no. I will be attending. You'll be in the audience. Got it. You should be. You should be moderating. No, I think I'm too dumb. I don't think I have it. Well, first she needs to learn about microplastics before she moderates on microplastics. But I will say one of the panelists is an environmental scientist with a PhD, but her name is Sally Rocks. And I think, yeah, that is. The best name ever. Of course she's a scientist. She should be a geologist, but, you know, I'm sure she gets that all the time. Sally rocks. I bet her self-esteem is through the roof. I hope it is. Yeah. No. Okay. So we have a membership program. It's how we power this show. We call our members neighbors. They pony up $10 a month or $100 a year to support our podcast and newsletter. We're so grateful to them. Shout out to our newest members, John M, Heather Kay, and Lorraine A. You can join them at membership.citycast.fm. And one of the perks we offer is that we pass the mic on Tuesdays so that our members can shout out things that they love. You guys want to read some? Yeah. Liesel A says Nick's knacks and art is a fantastic local queer Latinx artists working in acrylics. They also offer fun workshops for other budding artists. Love that. More art in our community. That's fun. Nick Snacks. That's such a good name. That's a great name. Kristen Jay, she wants to shout out Salt Lake Community Bell Fund. So they pay bail for our community members in need so they can wait at home for their trial instead of in jail. Now is a great time to donate to bring our legally innocent neighbors home. Listen, as we continue to build more versions of prison in this state, we need our bail fund more than ever. So shout out to them.

Like I said, you can support this show in addition to supporting your bail fund and get great perks by becoming a Citicast Salt Lake Neighbor. Membership.citycast.fm is the place to do it. Thank you to our new members and to the folks who have been at this with us for years now, supporting our work. All right, you two. I'll see you out there. See you out there. Bye. That is all for us today here on CityCast Salt Lake. We will be back tomorrow morning with more from around town. Take care.