A "Save the Bay Horse!" banner hangs on the round sign that has marked the Grant Road bar for as long as many people can remember.

PHotos by David Sanders / Arizona Daily Star

More Photos (2):

Other articles by Coley Ward:

Bisbee hills are alive on race day B-52s get 'em dancing – eventually 2 Live Crew: Speaking their mind ADOT seeks rent deal for bike co-op Deal sought to keep Tucson bike co-op in Downtown homeB-52s still flying highMake your big day green This time, don't expect Wilco to get brush-off They're on the rollTry Bisbee after Five

Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Health Care
Dependable Health Services
Physical Therapists Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps

Just because there aren't any cars in the Bay Horse Tavern's parking lot doesn't mean there aren't any customers.

The North Side tavern is the quintessential neighborhood bar. Many of its regulars walk there.

Elizabeth Blair, 25, used to live across the street from the Bay Horse before moving to another part of town four years ago.

"I still come by, and it's the same people here now who were here then," she said on a recent evening. "And it was probably the same people then as it was four or five years before that."

Blair is sitting at the bar, enjoying a small pitcher of Dos Equis and a shot of Patrón tequila. She's come straight from rugby practice, and she's brought a friend.

Bryant, a 5-month-old black Labrador retriever mix, sits at her feet. Blair says it's not unusual for regulars to bring their dogs to the bar.

Occasionally, the dog gets up to do some exploring, but he shies away when a handful of customers try to pet him. He pokes his nose at the legs of the foosball table. He wanders underneath the bar's two pool tables and paws at the jukebox, then concludes his investigation at the Bay Horse's signature furnishing — the big chair.

The oversize chair, like the kind that Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann character sat in, dominates the middle of the barroom. Susan Compton, who owns the Bay Horse as well as the Rusty Nail bar, in the North Side's Flowing Wells area, says she bought the chair at a warehouse in San Francisco in 1989.

"It didn't look as big in the warehouse as it actually was," she says. "Then we couldn't get it in the bar. So we had to lift it over the patio wall and take the patio door off its hinges."

Customers like to have their pictures taken in the chair, and many Polaroids are hung on a bulletin board on the back wall. Compton says she used to keep an instant camera behind the bar, but Polaroid no longer makes instant cameras.

The chair is especially popular with sorority girls, who descend on the bar with digital cameras in hand to have their pictures taken in the big chair — part of rush week scavenger hunts.

"We had to chain the chair to a post," Compton says, "because the guys would pick the college girls up in it and carry them around the bar."

There's no shortage of good times at the Bay Horse. But for how much longer?

Bay Horse Tavern is one of the properties that may be torn down when the city widens a five-mile section of East Grant Road between North Oracle Road and North Swan Road.

Melissa Antol, the city's Grant Road project manager, says the road widening will definitely impact the Bay Horse, but she's not sure how much.

"We may need to take 10 feet at the front of the property, or it might be less than that," she says. "We won't know the full impact to the Bay Horse until the alignment is surveyed in the spring."

Even if the city does decide to demolish the Bay Horse, it could take several years.

"Construction funding through the (Regional Transportation Authority) becomes available in 2013, so you won't see any dirt fly before that time," Antol says.

Compton says she isn't going down without a fight. She says she plans to apply to have the Bay Horse listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

But she may be fighting a losing battle.

City Historic Preservation Officer Jonathan Mabry says being listed on the National Register of Historic Places doesn't afford a property any protection from demolition. Moreover, he says the city hired an independent consultant to assess the the Bay Horse in 2003, and the bar was found lacking, despite its location in the Blenman-Elm Historic District.

"A historic building has to meet three criteria," Mabry says. "It has to be at least 50 years old, it has to have some significance (either architectural or historical), and it has to have integrity — that means the building has not been substantially altered from the way it looked originally and has to be visible from the street."

The bar opened in 1948 in a different building on Grant Road. It moved nearby into its current location, then a brand-new building, in 1958.

Compton bought the bar in 1982.

The Bay Horse, the consultants determined, has undergone too many changes in the past 50 years.

"I like the Bay Horse Tavern," Mabry says. "It's a great neighborhood bar. But it just doesn't meet those national standards for historical significance."

Try telling that to Aly Hodge, who tends bar at The Rusty Nail but likes to spend her free time at the Bay Horse.

"I wait on people at The Rusty Nail whose grandfathers used to drink at the Bay Horse," she says.

What do the locals like about the Bay Horse?

"We love the jukebox and smoking porch," says Hodge, who was seated at a large outdoor table surrounded by a group of regulars. "We love that we can walk here."

Another popular Bay Horse perk: free popcorn.

"You ask the bartender, and they throw it in the microwave for you," Hodge says.

"The price of drinks here is right," adds Chad Parkin, a nursing student who sat across from Hodge. "And there's no fights," he says. "They're few and far between."

In November, Compton began asking customers to e-mail the city to show their support for the Bay Horse.

Antol says she had heard from less than a dozen people by the Nov. 17 deadline to submit comments.

The proposal to widen Grant Road — which will affect 421 properties, either taking them out entirely or slicing off a portion — will go to the City Council for a vote in January.

Compton has also hung a sign in front of the bar encouraging passers-by to "save the Bay Horse" and directing them to the city's Web site for the road project, grantroad.info.

"It really is kind of baffling to me that (saving the Bay Horse) doesn't seem that important to the people making the decisions about the road widening," Compton says.

The bar's loyal customers say it would be hard to imagine life without it.

"I don't think anybody believes (it will close)," Parkin says.

"There's a ton of rumors," Hodge adds.