Why Does SLC Hate Mustaches?

MURRAY, Utah – The mayor of the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray says he has little choice but to shave his nearly foot-long handlebar mustache for charity. Dan Snarr is putting the decision to a vote of residents and says his fashion statement is "getting creamed." "People are voting 'shave.' It's a way to get back at an elected official," said Snarr, who has sported the waxed mustache for three years but now is resigned to shaving.

Besides, his wife hates it. She's sick of puckering up for a kiss and getting poked in the eye.

Yet the 59-year-old Snarr also is facing pressure from the mustache lobby. The St. Louis-based American Mustache Institute got wind of his plans and called on Snarr to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of opposition.

The Mustache Institute — a tongue-in-check group dedicated to defending a man's right to sport a mustache against modern aversions — is demanding Snarr "recant" his shaving pledge and find another way to support the Children's Miracle Network.

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