Tammy’s Baby Shoppe for years was a go-to place for many when it came to baby clothes, furniture and such.
It was in business for 34 years before closing six years ago this month.
Tammy’s Baby Shoppe was located in the 100 block of North Main Street in downtown Manteca.
A few years before it closed, the owners repainted the southern facing wall.
It was covered in a blue and pink pattern of large blocks,
There were some who were not amused.
That included a few members of the Manteca Mural Society.
The detractors believed it was nothing more than a giant billboard.
It was easy to make the argument given the pattern and the use of bright pink and baby blue hues.
After the business closed and a new concern opened, the wall was painted over.
One has to wonder if the — shall we say — non-authorized mural were still in place today whether it would spark a free speech debate in Manteca.
A large mural on a bakery in Conway, New Hampshire painted by high school students has done just that.
It was not “authorized” by town officials.
There was an artistic interpretation of a sun with red and yellow sun beams rising above a horizon filled with large paintings of doughnuts, muffins, scones, and pastries arranged in a pattern to symbolize the nearby White Mountains.
Town bureaucrats were not amused.
A building inspector tagged it for being an illegal sign. The town allows a business housed in the size of the building the bakery is located to have signage that didn’t exceed 22 square feet.
The mural consists of 91 square feet.
Requests for a variance was rejected.
The bakery mural is now a federal case.
Bakery owner Sean Young has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the town that demanded the mural be painted over.
The Institute for Justice has partnered with Young to make his case,.
The non-profit legal foundation has fought against similar violations of the First Amendment rights of small business owners elsewhere:
Among those cases were:
*A 2020 victory that allowed a North Dakota saloon to keep up its mural.
*A 2017 win for a Florida video game store that wanted to display an inflatable Mario in front of its store,.
*A 2013 ruling which permitted a California gym to advertise on a sandwich board out front.
Art — just like speech and writing — is a First Amendment issue.
And while no one pushed to see whether Tammy’s Baby Shoppe’s simplistic — and what some viewed as ugly or coarse in its execution — mural should have been tagged as being inappropriate, that wasn’t the case for a nearby mural on Maple Avenue celebrating Rotary’s efforts to eradicate polio worldwide.
A Lathrop man who had views against vaccinations that likely aligned closely with declared Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , vandalized the mural on multiple occasions before being arrested for the act.
It was treated as a misdemeanor since it involved property damage.
But you could argue that the man was intentionally violating the First Amendment rights of those that commissioned the mural.
As an aside, one has to wonder whether the Tammy’s Baby Shoppe mural were it still gracing the wall in 2023 would trigger angry reactions not because it could be construed as a sign but because the colors used are symbolic of a two-gender exclusive world.
Sharp comedians like Chris Teicheira could have a field day with that one.
Teicheira, by the way, is now remodeling the former Tammy’s Baby Shoppe as home for the Deaf Puppy Comedy Club.
He is working with the Manteca Mural Society to have a mural on the wall that celebrates his hometown.
May I suggest borrowing from the late Meat Loaf’s repertoire of songs and use “Bat Out of Hell” as a theme?
It is a suitable zinger with a twist aimed at those that dumped on those moving to Manteca in the 1970s and early 1980s from the Bay Area to become a part of Manteca and raise their families.
They were derisively referred to as Bay Area Transplants or BATS. The reason they came here was to get out of the hell that the Bay Area had become for affordable housing, crime , and such.
What could be more appropriate than a “Bat Out of Hell” themed mural with a Manteca twist?
It would certainly fit with what the Manteca Mural Society sees as its mission to “use the visual arts as a force to build community pride, to revitalize and enhance the Manteca economy, to promote tourism and build a cultural bridge between the past, present and the future.”
There, of course, would be fears that it would open old wounds.
But it would also do what good art can does — make people reflect, think, and see things from a different perspective.
Those that have moved here, and continue to do so — from east of the Altamont Pass — have been a major force shaping this community for going on 50 years.
Instead of everyone harping on the challenges such a migration brings, it would be nice for a mural that reflects on the much larger positives.
It is an economic driving force for Manteca that ranks right up for with water and agriculture.
No, this is not a digression.
A mural on such a theme done with a lot of thought and the right execution could have a major positive impact on the community’s psyche. And then again, maybe it won’t.
But that is the quirk when it comes to speech and art.
The meaning is in the eye of the beholder.
It would not be a stretch of the imagination for another self-storage to squawk to the city that the stunning Manteca murals Security Public Self Storage has commissioned on the Crestwood Avenue side of its business off of Lathrop Road is ultimately advertising.
It’s clearly setting the business apart from the other dozen or so such firms. As such, it could be construed as a giant calling card.
Murals aren’t fish nor fowl.
That means they are never pure art — whatever that means.
But they are advertising as they almost always are designed to send a message even if it doesn’t have commercial overtones.
And given they tend to involve reactions just like free speech does.
This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
