Wednesday, May 27, 1998 | 9:49 a.m.
Despite a last-minute campaign by animal rights activists, the Mesquite City Council sided with a local casino Tuesday by approving what will be America's first-ever "Running of the Bulls."
Alice Fessenden and Lyle Hughes were the only dissenters in the 3-2 vote that opens the gate for 12 bulls -- weighing about 1,000 pounds each -- to rumble a quarter-mile down Mesquite Boulevard behind a crowd of 1,000 runners who will be paying $50 each for the chance to make history.
Phil Immordino, the event's creator, plans to pull off the stunt Saturday, July 11 at 5 p.m. Application forms for people wishing to run in the event are available at (602) 420-1175.
The course will begin at the Casablanca hotel-casino's second entrance, pass under the skywalk at Si Redd's Oasis resort and end in the Oasis parking lot.
Concerts and a golf tournament are also planned for the Western weekend festival Immordino expects will cost about $60,000. Oasis's Kirk Lee was expected to meet with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Authority today regarding funding possibilities.
Immordino anticipates more than 10,000 spectators will line the streets to witness Mesquite's version of Pamplona, Spain's world-renowned but bloody seven-day festival of bravado.
Immordino, however, says his event will be safe, citing fencing to protect spectators, 2-foot-wide escape routes every 100 feet for runners wanting to quit, mandatory waivers freeing the city of liability, a trial run in mid-June, and his personal promise that no participant will be intoxicated.
"We've eliminated all swords, spears and clubs," Immordino said in almost teasing humor to Mayor Ken Carter's questions spurred by animal activists' concerns about Spain's typical drunken madness and violence.
"There will be no dogs chewing on ankles, and no men with bullwhips ... but there will be men on horseback to keep the animals under control."
The Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal protection organization, has objected the loudest to Immordino's plans -- through telephone calls, media releases and letters to the council.
HSUS claims bulls will be poked, prodded and antagonized, as happens in Spain, directly violating Nevada's anit-cruelty statute.
Yet no HSUS representative attended Tuesday's meeting and no animal activists addressed council.
"Everyone thinks of Spain, of the danger, the spearing and the blood," an elated Immordino said moments after emerging victorious from council chambers. "The whole thing (we have planned) has been misconstrued by the animal activists, and I have to ask, where are they tonight?"
At least 13 people have been killed in Pamplona's event since 1924 when the city started keeping records.
Spain's running of the bulls dates back to 1591 when daredevils began running alongside the hefty creatures as they made their way to the bullring.
Yet it was Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" that romanticized the event, stirring tourists by the thousands to see it live.
The people who Immordino had in mind when his Phoenix-based Running of the Bulls America Inc. drummed up the Mesquite idea, however were the thousands yet to make it to Spain.
People like Clark County Fire Department spokesman Steve La-Sky.
An athlete who's finished seven marathons, La-Sky is confident he can handle the challenge physically. In fact, he's been waiting almost 20 years for the chance.
"I am a Hemingway fanatic -- I even had a dog named Hemingway," he said. "Running with the bulls has been my dream since I read that book, but I've never been able to afford to go to Pamplona."
A vegetarian and an animal lover, La-Sky said he'd never consider Mesquite's event if there was even a hint of animal abuse as opponents claim.
The asphalt remains the biggest problem for the bulls, said Kraig Hafen of Tamarack Trails, the family-owned company supplying the horned beasts.
"They're range bulls so they're used to running on rocks, but the asphalt's slick," Hafen said. "We'll try to soften the turn in the course so there won't be any harm to the animals."
Prior to the vote, Fessenden raised her concerns that Immordino's plan could heap more "bad luck" on a city that two years ago saw motorcycle stuntman Butch Laswell's fatal jump on the same stretch of road where the bulls will run, had a Patriot's Day event flop, and last week saw a rodeo cancelled at the last minute.
Immordino's event "sends a mixed message to our community," she said. "This is a community that deals in luck."
Mesquite could incur an image problem if the July event proves disastrous, she said. Her greatest concern remains those who call the city home and others tempted to move in wanting "a quiet golf town, not a rabble-rousing place in Spain."
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