Book store closure celebrated

John Christian Hopkins
Diné Bureau

Jordyn Walker-Charles, 5, wraps herself in a blanket and huddles against her mother, Cheryl Walker, for warmth on Monday while they and Staphanie Walker, 11, stand on Hwy 264, 10 miles east of the Arizona and New Mexico state line to celebrate the recent closure of the adult book store and gentlemen's club. [Photo by Jeffery Jones/Independent]

WINDOW ROCK — Nearly a dozen hardy protesters braved bitter weather Monday to show appreciation for a late Christmas gift the closure of an adult bookstore and "gentlemen's club" on Route 264.

"This place closing is like a present to us," said Jayson Charles, who has been a member of the National Native American Youth Coalition for about three years. He and some of his family members were there to "do as much as we can" to show McKinley County officials that the residents in this area don't want this type of establishment in their midst, he said.

"We want to send a message to the McKinley County commissioners," said Cheryl Walker Charles. "We want them to involve the community before they make decisions like this." Her mother, activist Nicole Walker, organized the protest as she did a year earlier when the store first opened.

"We don't need this," said Rev. Jim Bowling of the Bible Navajo Church. Bowling is also principal of the Wildcat Christian Academy, which like the church are neighbors to where the adult business was located. "We're so thrilled it's closed."

There was confusion when the store opened last year, with rumors going around that it was to be a merchandise store, a feed store, a used car lot just about everything but what it turned out to be, Bowling said.

In fact, thinking it was a general merchandise store, Bowling tried to be a good neighbor: "I gave them some paint. I wanted to welcome them to the neighborhood."

No, the paint he offered them wasn't the bright red that the building was soon painted.

"I haven't been able to live that down," Bowling said.

He would pass the business several times a day, and didn't believe it was doing much business, Jayson Charles said. That type of business isn't something the children need to see, he added.

And there were children at the protest.

Although, Jayson thinks a lack of customers forced the business to close, it could have been frightened off by the ferocious-looking dinosaur that his nephew Ryan Quintana Walker Ben carried around.

The children had their own ideas of what kind of business should be allowed on the site.

"I want to see a petting zoo with all the animals I like," said five-year-old Jordyn Charles.

Her cousin, Daryl Walker Ben, 10, wanted to see a Pizza Hut there.

"Instead of destroying the youth, they should put up something to help the youth," said Stephanie Walker.

The Gallup branch of the youth coalition is looking to adopt this stretch of Route 264 and dedicate it to the women delegates of the Navajo Nation Council, said Cheryl Walker Charles. The women delegates led by Katherine Benally and Hope MacDonald-Lonetree tried to keep the business from opening.

"We're going to come out here and pick up trash along the highway every year," she promised.

John Christian Hopkins can be reached at hopkins1960@hotmail.com or by calling 505-371-5443.