POTATOES LIKELY TARGET OF BOYCOTT

March 5, 1993

by Paul Beebe
and Jim Hopkins

The Idaho Statesman

     Idaho's world-famous potatoes could be caught in the
middle of another political struggle if an anti-gay
initiative goes on the ballot, officials said Thursday.
     "Obviously, even before tourism you should talk
about potatoes," said Carl Wilgus, administrator of the
state Division of Tourism Development.
     Wilgus and other officials said the reason
Colorado's tourism and skiing industries were boycotted
by opponents of a similar initiative is because of their
national stature.
     "If you think back to when Idaho was going to have
the most restrictive abortion law in the United States,
it wasn't Idaho skiing that was picked.  They looked at
potatoes," said John Wels, on the board of the Sun
Valley-Ketchum Chamber of Commerce.
     three years ago this month, the president of the
National Organization for Women warned that NOW would
call for a boycott of Idaho's most valuable crop if Gov.
Andrus didn't veto the abortion bill.
     The threat unleashed an uproar in the state.  Pro-
choice Democrats said a boycott could harm all Idahoans.
Andrus eventually rejected the measure.
     "I think we are very naive if we don't think we will
see exactly that backlash again, which was very organized
an very quick," said Bobbie Patterson, executive director
of the Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau.
     The prospect that tourist-oriented Idaho towns could
be singled out doesn't strike McCall Mayor Larry smith as
very likely.
     "We cater principally to the greater Idaho area,"
Smith said. "While we have our share of the jet set, it
still isn't the kind of cosmopolitan resort like Aspen
and the others are."
     Wilgus said the initiative's opponents could punish
Idaho in several ways.  They might target Albertson's
grocery stores or Boise Cascade Corp. paper products, for
example.
     Georgia Smith, a commerce department spokeswoman,
said the state has not received any boycott threats, but
takes them seriously.
     In Colorado, most of the economic fallout following
the passage in November of that state's anti-gay
initiative, Amendment 2, has been in conventions and
business meetings rather than lost vacation dollars,
state and local officials said Thursday.
     Overall tourism-related business--including retail
sales, skier visits and lodging--is up 12 percent
compared with a year ago, mostly because of improved snow
conditions at ski areas, according to Deborah Cornelius,
public relations director for the Colorado Tourism Board.
     But in Denver, the city has lost $33.8 million in
convention business scheduled through 1999 due directly
to the boycott, said Rich Grant, a spokesman for the
Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau.  That's out
of $3 billion scheduled during the same period.
     He said business groups are more likely to respond
to boycotts because of fears members will not attend
conventions.
     "If they hear that 5 or 10 percent of their members
are not going to attend...they'll pull out as much to
save money for the association as to make a statement,"
Grant said.
     Explaining why tourism officials didn't mount a
campaign against the measure, Grant said they
underestimated Amendment 2 because polls before the
November election showed the measure was losing.