Posted on 10/07/2013 5:24:27 AM PDT by markomalley
National Park Rangers shut down a family-owned and fully-booked inn along a lonely North Carolina highway on Saturday, driving customers away during the peak tourist season.
Bruce O’Connell, the owner of the Blue Ridge Inn, provoked the park rangers when he reopened his lodge after the Park Service demanded he close his business by Thursday due to the partial government shutdown. The World War II veterans who stormed their barricaded memorial inspired him to take a stand against the federal government, he said.
“It’s conscience and conviction that have taken over me, and I just can’t roll over any more,” he said. (RELATED: WWII vets storm closed memorial as GOP congressman reportedly distracts cops)
In response, the rangers blocked the inn with patrol cars and told customers and told customers who had booked reservations months in advance that the “government was closed,” according to USAToday. They also forced 35 of O’Connell’s 100 employees out of their homes and off the federally-leased lands.
“It’s about the visitors. It’s about the staff and employees who are now having to move off the mountain — they live here — with no notice. They have no jobs. That’s the concern,” said O’Connell of his newly homeless, jobless workers.
Another North Carolina outpost, the Peaks of Otter Lodge, folded without a fight after receiving a similar Park Service order.
Chief Ranger Steve Stinnett plans to enforce the directives issued from National Park Service Rangers in Washington, D.C. to keep rangers holding customers and homeowners at bay “as long as they are needed” — in other words, until the government resumes the recently shuttered 17 percent of its functions.
Keeping the rangers ringed around the inn will, according to Stinnet, ensure that “people don’t utilize a business that, according to the federal government, is closed.”
The Obama administration’s decision to deploy federal agents to wall off private businesses costs the tourism industry $76 million per day.
North Carolina’s unemployment rate currently stands at 8.7 percent.
I concur, boycott. Good post.
Yeah, the Obama’s need to be ousted from the White House. It should be shutdown now.
There is a parking area near Washington National Airport (DC) that people go to park and watch the planes take off, fish in the river, go on the bike/walking trail and yesterday (Sunday) nobody moved a “barakacade’ but the shoulder by the area was full of cars where the locals had parked. Some even admitted it was a ‘civil peaceful disobedience’ and many just shook their head and reasonably stated it would be a lot cheaper and make common sense to take the tape etc down rather than keep the ‘problem’ open as to cars parking on the shoulder and being a potential danger, pulling on and off the ONLY road from the airport to the city and connector roads...
Local ABC gave it GOOD coverage and I didn’t hear ONE person saying the situation was ‘good’....other than an ‘up yours’ good...
These good men are trying to keep their jobs and feed their families. If men will give in and obey the government over a job..... then just imagine how many will give in and obey when the government fully controls health care and can Barrycade the hospitals, clinics and pharmacies?
It’s not about cost.
It’s about POWER.
So begins the thugocracy.
This is beyond stupid. Has one, ONE, reported asked Øbama why he allows this to stand?
Such thugs are very good at not quite going over the legal lines themselves, while ensuring your only viable option is to cross those lines or submit. That’s a very hard decision for the law abiding.
obamma government thugs!
Another North Carolina outpost, the Peaks of Otter Lodge, folded without a fight after receiving a similar Park Service order.
This is under orders from the chief.
Some facts are screwed up in this sad tale:
The inn is Pisgah Inn south of Asheville on the BRP. Been there: the views are extraordinary and the little restaurant is pretty dang good.
Peaks of Otter is in VA, not NC.
Its fairly widespread..I was on the BRP around Mabry Mill and while the facilities were closed, they were not putting up barricades. There WAS however a more than normal Park Ranger presence on the road.
That said, folks should mount a parade/protest at least...I like the idea of flying gadsen flags.
This regime is unmasking itself as the enemy of We the People, which we knew. Now others are finding it out. It should give them mighty pause. They are not even trying to hide their fascism any longer.
Time to shut them down.
I think you have it wrong, SpinnerWebb. I think the Inn leases the land and the building from the Feds.
These rangers are just like the Nazis. I was only following orders.
The Rangers said the sandbags and mortars were just routine for the protection of “our people” and “Have a nice day”.
If that’s the case, and I have it wrong, then a lawyer will need to go over the lease to see if there are any re-acquisition clauses. If not, sue the government for everything it’s worth.
But if the Feds have the lease, they own the surface rights. My caution is just agains selling out any of your right to the government. Bad things happen.
P.S. My given name rhymes with Pan Dowdy. My nickname all through high school was Shoo Fly, for that very reason.
Two minor corrections to the article:
1) It’s the Pisgah Inn, not the Blue Ridge Inn, it’s just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Pisgah National Forest near Asheville. NC and SC Tea Party groups have been protesting there for a few days off and on.
2) The Peaks of Otter Lodge is along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia (near Bedford), not NC, unless the sneaky Tarheels pushed the state line about 100 miles north when I wasn’t looking.
}:-)4
I can’t find it quickly as to whether it might be true, but another possibility is that the Inn was built pre park. When the park came they offered the owner leases for long stretches of time.
I do not think that is the case here since this inn looks 1960’s-ish and the parkway was already there. But it could be. Elkmont in the Smokies had a slew of vacation homes that had such leases for upwards of 99 years, IIRC.
It would sure make things "interesting." I suspect it would engender substantial erosion of the principle of governed by consent.
I'd say it is about time the people saw the federal government as an active enemy, not that it is about to deploy B-2's and Warthogs against those it views as its subjects.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.