1993_03 Insight March 1993

              Health Center
and annual
health fair
educate CSUF.
Seepage 4.
KMPHFox
radio starts
all-news station
in Fresno.
See page 5.
FSU track,
swimmers
compete in WAC
championships.
See page 6.
California State University, Fresno
NSIGHT
Wednesday, March 3,1993
CSU Fresno's Premier News Source
Volume 25, Issue 16
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Bus stops, such as the one at First and Barstow, are quickly becoming palettes for urban artists, irritating many citizens.
Fresno structures awash in graffiti
♦ Local shopkeepers,
citizens enraged at
scribblings.
By John Chavira
Staff Writer
One night last January, shop
owner Norman Pimentel grew so
frustrated over youths spray-painting his store almost every week,
he grabbed a gun and decided to do
something about iL
Pimentel waited for hours in the
darkness of his Oriental Rug Workshop just across the .street from Fresno
High School. When two young men
came along just after midnight and
began spraying his adobe-colored
wall, Pimentel was ready.
He ran out of the store and fired his
.38-calibcr revolver into ihe road,
keeping the two in check until police
arrived. Police took the two 2(>year-
old "taggers", (a street term for graffiti sprayers), intocustody and confiscated Pimcntcl's gun for firing the
weapon within city limits.
The incident illustrates the level of
frustration that many Fresnans feel
about what they perceive as the rising
tide of graffiti in the city.
"Somebody's going to get so upset,
they're going to shoot somebody,"
Pimentel said, sitting behind a small
crowded table in the workshop of his
1900 N. Echo Ave. store.
Pimentel, a 1964 CSUF alumnus, is
a member of the Historic Fresno High
Neighborhood Organization and
Tower Preservation Society.
"Our group, people in the Tower
preservation district, we wanted to
catch somebody, to make an example
of them," Pimentel said about the
action he took that night.
'I'm no raving, crazy red-neck. I
believe in gun control," Pimentel
said. "1 only started using a gun in
the last year. I didn't run out and
start shooting at them. I went out
there and told these guys to stop."
Pimentel has owned the store for
four years, but said in the last two
he's seen an explosion of graffiti
in the neighborhood. Pimentel said
he believes the majority of
"taggers" who hithis shoparc gang
members.
"It looks like we're being
See Graffiti, page 9.
Breaking the
law to live on
AIDS patients turn
to natural, illegal
drug for comfort.
By Suzanne Kayian
Staff Writer
About once a month. Bill's uncle
asks him to pick up a prescription for
him. But Bill doesn't go to his local
pharmacist—he goes to his neighborhood drug dealer.
The medicine     	
Bill picks up is
marijuana. Once
a month Bill
breaks the law to
help his uncle live
more comfortably with AIDS.
According to
numerous testimonials from
AIDS patients
across the United
States, smoking
or eating marijuana helps prevent them from
"wasting away".
It simulates their
appetite and and
controls nausea,     ——j^^^^^—
the patients say,
allowing them to eat and helping them
maintain their body weight.
When these people with AIDS
smoke marijuana, they break the law.
And when they break the law, they
can be, and have been, put behind
bars.
But many people with AIDS continue to risk imprisonment or stiff
fines because, they contend, marijuana is the only drug, natural or synthetic, legal or illegal, that helps with
the pain and complications from
AIDS.
Winston, a practicing criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles, was
diagnosed HIV-positive three and a
half years ago. He said that smoking
marijuana as part of his Al DS therapy.
"obviously makes mc feel nervous,
especially in the line of work I am in.
"But at this stage of my life, when it
is a matter of life and death, it is the
quality of my life 'hat is important,
not what is on my record," Winston
said.
Winston saidhis doctor encouraged
him to use marijuana to increase his
appetite and con-
"When it is a
matter of life
and death, it is
the quality of
my life that is
important, not
what is on my
record."
-Winston
trol his nausea.
Winston said,"I
think it's ridiculous that something that has so
much proven
value is illegal.
Weal I have to go
sneaking around
like wc arc drug
dealers or drug
pushers."
Jay J., who is
also HIV-positive said, "Doctors will freely
prescribe hard
drugs ..like
Xanax, codeine
and   synthetic
tSS^mmmmWrna       morphine,   hut
you can't smoke
a natural substance thai you can gro w."
"Marijuana has so many fewer side
effects than these hard, hard drugs,"
Jay said.
"Our puritanical society considers
[drug use] taboo and they classify it
with heroin and cocaine," Jay said.
"They lump it all into one category.
It's not the same, it's not the same,"
he said.
Jay said, "If you go to any doctor.
See AIDS, page 10.
Proposed freeway
raises controversy
♦Expansion of State Route 168
will displace families, workers!
By Katharine Barrans	
Staff Writer
More than 2,400 people, 21 businesses, three churches
and 135 workers in Fresno and Govis may find themselves "displaced" within the next few years.
The project that will require their removal is the proposed expansion of State Route 168, which will run nine
miles through the Fresno-Clovis Metropolitan Area, connecting proposed Route 180 to Temperance Avenue at
Tollhouse Road.
According to Brian J. Appcr, chief environmental analyst for the project at Caltrans, the northeastern sector of
the Fresno-Clovis Metropolitan Area is the fastest growing in terms of commuter traffic, and in most need of this
freeway.
'The freeway and its alignment were developed according to growth patterns and trends of need and congestion,"
said Apper. "Most people would say that Caltrans is
responsible for wanting this, but it's the city and county
agencies, and all agencies involved who want and support
the completion of this project as soon as possible."
Caltrans has developed an Environmental Impact Report draft which states the purpose of the project is to:
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Beware of phony phone prize con
Source: CatTrans
provide a transportation facility that connects the City of
Fresno and the Huntington-Shaver Lake area, reduce the
amount of commuter traffic on local streets in the northeastern sector of the Fresno-Clovis area and reduce travel
times between the northeastern sector and downtown
Fresno.
STAND, (Sane Transportation Alternatives for Neigh-
borhood Defense)a citizen's group against the 168 project,
would rather sec the S400-440 million it will take to build
the urban freeway, used to maintain existing streets and
expand public transportation.
The group believes that money would be better spent on
a light*"rail system throughout the Fresno-Clovis Metro
See Highway, page 7.
^Business bureau
warns of illegal
phone solicitors.
By Leo Pena	
Staff Writer
"Congratulations. You have won
your choice of cither S10,000 in cash
or a new car, but first give us your
credit card number and purchase our
fine line of overpriced vitamins."
Margie Medina, certified consumer
services representative at the Better
Business Bureau of Central California, said that this example of a prize
promotion is currently making its
rounds throughout California.
A prize promotion company will
call people and tell them they've won
a prize but in order to receive it they
have to buy something else .often at a
very inflated price, said Medina.
They then will ask you for your
credit card number and if you don't
have one.they'll either hang up on
you or they'll send a courier over to
pick up a check.
The BBB receives thousands of complaints every year about such promo-
"Thcrc are a number of common
complaints. A lot of them come back
to the lack of comm unication between
a business and a customer," said Central California BBB President, Doug
Broten.
Brotcn said that many customers
don't understand a transaction.
He said that it's the business' responsibility to explain the transaction
and the customer's responsibility to
understand it.
There arc complaints where the customer has wrong information or the
customer takes home his purchase
and decides he doesn't want it and
wants the business to take it back,
Broten said.
Communication, or lack of it, is one
of the largest problems that the BBB
sees, Broten said.
Medina said that there is no one
common complaint she hears at the
BBB, but that there are'a variety of
complaints from dissatisfied customers in areas from home improvements
to auto repair.
"One of the biggest areas wc sec
problems with arc prize-promotion
companies," said Medina.
"They're really trying to induce
people because of the prize or they
think that they have in fact won the
prize when they really haven't won
anything," said Broten.
"They're going to have to purchase
something to get the prize."
Many times the prize the person has
won is not what was promised.
A California hot tub may turn out to
be nothing more than an inflatable
rubber tub. A powerboat pictured in a
brochure may turn out to be a vinyl
raft with a small motor.
Medina said the prize is not always
what the customer was led to believe
it would be.
In other cases, the customer never
receives a prize or has problems receiving it
The companies move around a great
deal and change their names frequently, said Broten, so it's difficult
to locate them.
"We don't have any legal authority.
See Swindle, page 7.