Boycott The Great Wolf Lodge, Thurston County, WA

Lets face it, we all detest parasites.  Whether it be leeches, tapeworms, boll weevils or a neighbor that borrows your tools and never returns them, parasites contribute nothing and suck the life out of their hosts.

The Great Wolf Lodge in Thurston County, WA is just such a parasite.  In a recent story in our local newspaper, The Olympian, it was disclosed that the Great Wolf Lodge was suing Thurston County in federal court to prevent collection of county property taxes.

See, the Great Wolf Lodge is partially owned and operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, and they dont think the lodge should have to pay taxes because of Tribal ownership.  The land is not on an Indian Reservation, but because it is partially owned by the tribe (51%), it is not subject to certain taxation.  This is pure nonsense.

The other 49% of the Great Wolf Lodge is owned by a private corporation located in Wisconsin.  Get that?  Wisconsin.

Now of course, the tribe has no problems accepting and using our county services.  They have county roads with access into their facility.  They used county building inspectors and permits to build their resort.  They use the county's sheriff department, the fire department, ambulance, and their employees receive county benefits.  But because they are tribal members, they dont think they should have to contribute back to the actual operation of the county.

So while the tribe and the private Wisconsin LLC rake in the dollars using our roads and services, their tax free profits are being shipped back to Wisconsin.  The blood sucking parasite and its host.

Well, this is going to change.  The people of Thurston county can not afford leeches like the Great Wolf Lodge.  If the lodge wishes to do business in Thurston County, then they should immediately drop their lawsuit, and pay their portion of property taxes like the rest of Thurston County's citizens.  If the Lodge continues their refusal, the county should remove access from the county roads, and cease all services to the business. 

If the Lodge would like to contract for those services, the contracts should be structured in a way so that the cost of services far exceeds the assessed property taxes.

I encourage all residents of Thurston County, WA to immediately boycott the Lodge and refuse to spend money in this establishment.  We have already canceled our reservation there for an up coming Boys & Girls club charity event.  The rooms are incredibly overpriced, and they even had the gall to try and charge me a cancellation fee when I canceled more than 2 weeks in advance of our reservation.

There is only one way to deal with corporate shisters like the tribe and their 49% Wisconsin ownership.  They want community support, then they should support their community.  Until then, we'll see if we cant get them where it hurts most.

Comments

[Tedd]

I agree.. they are sucking all the money from us, and not giving back. The management there is hideous. Just check out all the employees (ex) that have been fired, etc for bogus reasons. It's a cash cow for the indians, and a complete loss to Thurston County residents.

[Gus]

I've been there, about 5 months ago in 2009, and yes it's a neat place, but way too small in general, prices very high, service low on average. If you plan on going to this place, just enjoy the water park, skip the restaurants, as the food is not very good, skip the arcade, as it will chew through dozens of your dollars, skip the spa, as the prices there are "holy sh*t", skip the teen dance area, as it's a sweat factory and costs even more. Just go for the water park, use your room as a simple storage place/sleep, take your pictures as needed..but dont get caught in the hype of blowing all your money on the above. Trust me, unless you are wealthy, and not worried about your employment, dont piss it away.. just have fun in the water. What's this crap I've been hearing about the Indians gambling that the place will fail in 5 years, so they can turn it into a casino? This rumor is all over the town. Actually, it's very smart of the Indians.. Hell, with a 51% share in the place, they can easily turn it over to one of the coolest Casino's in the state.

Oh, and the area they place this monster, it's a fricken trailer park dump... I bet the Indians own all the land around it too, thus it will be easy to expand and push out more slots...

What a racket.