Pink Taco’s Morton turns to Big Easy

At least one of Mary Manross’ nightmares didn’t come true this month.

Yes, Proposition 401 failed. But the name of the Pink Taco restaurant chain — a name with which the mayor of Scottsdale took brief but infamous issue — will not be on the new Cardinals Stadium in Glendale.

“She’s got more nightmares than me,” Pink Taco owner Harry Morton said with a grin Tuesday from a stool at the Scottsdale restaurant’s bar.

Morton, 25, has more on his mind now that the Cardinals owners, the Bidwill family, selected the University of Phoenix’s name, rather than the restaurant chain’s, for the stadium.

“At the end of the day, I would have liked to be able to match their offer,” Morton said. “We were too outside the box for the Bidwills, who are notoriously conservative.”

Perhaps, he said, there was concern about his father, Peter Morton, having expressed interest in owning an NFL team. The elder Morton certainly could afford it.

According to a statement the chain’s publicist issued Tuesday, Peter Morton sold the Hard Rock Cafe chain and its Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino for a combined total of nearly $1.2 billion.

But Harry Morton is moving on. He said he’s looking for sponsorship opportunities at two major annual Scottsdale events, the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction and the FBR Open, and nationally with NASCAR.

Morton said he’s uninterested in Glendale Arena across the street from the Cardinals’ stadium. “We’re football fans,” he said.

So Morton said he’s looking at bidding for naming rights at what, at least this week, is the best-known football stadium in the nation: the newly reopened Louisiana Superdome.

The New Orleans people are interested, Morton said. “They approached us.”

Also in sexy Scottsdale on Tuesday, the City Council approved the official election results on Proposition 401, which included totals showing that neither of the precincts where Scottsdale’s two strip clubs are located supported tougher restrictions on the clubs.

Manross and other proponents claimed that strip clubs have “negative secondary effects” justifying stronger regulation.

Still, while the clubs spent huge amounts of money to persuade people to vote no, ads and fliers aren’t usually as persuasive to voters as their own eyes and ears.

Yet not enough of those living closest to the clubs saw or heard anything to justify voting to lower the boom on them.

“It didn’t pass,” Morton said of Proposition 401, “and I’m glad it didn’t.”

Sounds like Morton is gloating a little. But it’s hard to blame him.

After all, his place has a name some conservative people want to avoid.