This 2018 file photo shows Tucson's Tanque Verde Ranch. A state bill would spend $900,000 to promote Arizona's guest ranches.

 Mike Christy / Arizona Daily Star file photo

PHOENIX — State lawmakers voted Monday to spend $900,000 in tax dollars in a bid to convince Arizonans and others across the country to visit one of the state’s remaining dude ranches.

“At one point in the ’40s ... we had as many as 80 of them,” Kevin DeMenna, lobbyist for the Arizona Dude Ranch Association told members of the House Committee on Land, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. “They were a national draw.”

Now, he put the number at closer to 14.

DeMenna said the ranches, like other forms of tourism, were hit hard by the pandemic. And they, like other employers, had to lay off workers.

“But they don’t typically deal with a horse herd that numbers in excess of a few hundred,” he said.

“You can’t furlough the animals,” DeMenna said. “They’ve got to be fed.”

Complicating matters, he said, is the dude ranches were a particular draw for international visitors. With that market pretty much dried up, DeMenna said there is a belief that a promotional campaign would help spur a domestic market.

DeMenna originally got Rep. David Cook, R-Globe, to sponsor HB 2169 asking for $3 million. But that got pared to $900,000.

Old Tucson closed indefinitely due to the pandemic. It was the premiere authentic Western filming location before it burned in 1995. More than 400 movie and TV projects were made there. Produced by Rick Wiley / Arizona Daily Star

“We think that will manage to launch what we hope will be a coast-to-coast outreach to help to fill these ranches which, in turn, supports these local economies,” he told lawmakers.

DeMenna said there is precedent. For example, state lawmakers voted in 2018 to give $1.5 million a year in sales tax revenues for 30 years to the Arizona Office of Tourism to promote events at Phoenix International Raceway.

“We’d like to see a microcosm of that extended in this case to the guest ranch community,” DeMenna said.

But Rep. Lorenzo Sierra, D-Cashion, whose district includes that raceway, said this isn’t exactly the same thing. He said the raceway owners first had to put up $100 million of their own money on improvements as a condition to get the cash.

“They had skin in the game,” Sierra said.

Rep. Diego Rodriguez, D-Laveen, had a parallel concern.

He said there’s a “deep well of documentation” showing the economic impact on Arizona of a NASCAR race. And he asked DeMenna if he could prove the same thing about dude ranches.

“We wouldn’t be bringing this to you if that economic impact weren’t there,” DeMenna responded. But he conceded he does not now have such figures.

Rep. Andrea Dalessandro, D-Green Valley, said she has several dude ranches in her district and supports tourism. But she said she cannot vote for a specific carve-out of state dollars.

“I don’t like the idea of support for a specific segment,” Dalessandro said. Instead, she promised to work with state tourism officials to get them to use more of their existing resources to highlight the dude ranches.

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