Tucson Boot Maker Keeps Doors Open At His Essential Non-Essential Business

“This business is certainly essential to me and to my employees that have families to feed..."

Stewart Boot Manufacturing Company and owner Victor Borg have been producing hand-crafted western boots since 1955.

The owner of a South Tucson boot manufacturer said Tuesday that he hasn’t closed during the COVID-19 pandemic because his business is essential to him and his employees, and he is saddened that other business owners haven’t followed his lead.

Stewart Boot Manufacturing Company and owner Victor Borg have been producing hand-crafted western boots since 1955. His employees are still hard at work making boots and getting paid, which also means Borg’s suppliers are getting paid, he says.

In March, Governor Doug Ducey declared a Public Health State of Emergency and later issued several Executive Orders requiring the closure of most multi-employee businesses involved in the sale or manufacture of non-essential goods and services.

Borg, who is 80-something, has made boots for Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a loyal following of professional cowboys and rodeo athletes. But although his industry isn’t on the governor’s essential list, Borg has kept the doors open.

“This business is certainly essential to me and to my employees that have families to feed, so that justifies me as an essential business, as far as I’m concerned,” Borg said, who added that he understands COVID-19 is real and insists he is not being “a stubborn jerk.”

Stewart Boots is not open to the public except by appointment, and Borg and his employees are following precautions such as social distancing, personal hygiene, and minimal travel in order to comply with public health recommendations “to the best of my ability, short of shutting down my business.”

And when some of Borg’s employees have expressed concern about being questioned by police about why they weren’t at home, Borg wrote each of them a letter stating they are his essential employees.

Borg didn’t write one for himself, he says, and if someone were to give him “any guff” he plans to tell them “to go to blazes.”

Borg also questions why more business owners haven’t stayed open or questioned the authority of the government to declare someone’s business to be non-essential.

“Last that I saw, this is not Nazi Germany,” Borg says. “I’m not only surprised, I am saddened” by the situation. It’s possible that the dissimilar reactions could be due to a difference in generational attitudes, he noted.

“We didn’t go around looking for trouble, okay, but we didn’t take any crap either,” Borg said, adding that some people nowadays appear to be “acting like sheep. Well that ain’t me.”