O’Connell has been the owner of Pisgah
Inn nearly 25 miles from Asheville for 35 years. He was around during
the 1996 shutdown in Bill Clinton’s presidency.
But something about this one feels different, he told TheBlaze Friday afternoon.
“I was 20 years younger then and I had a
lot to lose,” O’Connell, now 60 years old, said. “Now, I’ve got a son
and I feel like I’ve got more to lose.”
He’s not talking from a fiscal
standpoint — although this is the inn’s busiest month of the year — but
from a philosophical standpoint.“This is the federal government turning guests away from a private business.”
O’Connell decided to stay open earlier
this week to provide food, bathrooms and safety to people traveling on
the parkway, which the National Park Service kept open because it’s a
thoroughfare.
Then on Thursday at 6 p.m., O’Connell said rangers showed up at the inn.
“Looking at uniformed law enforcement
with a gun, you do different things,” O’Connell said, noting that he
didn’t feel strong armed or intimidated but out of respect for their
position, decided to cease operations at their direction.
Then, he slept on it. Waking up Friday morning, he said he was “basically fired up with our country’s government.”
And he decided to reopen again today at 11:30 a.m.
“Guests started streaming in,” he said.
But by 12:30 p.m. a ranger was on the scene, red lights flashing, blocking the Pisgah Inn’s parking lot and turning people away.
Several minutes of video was taken of
the ranger at the inn’s entrance. At one point, an SUV drives up and its
traveler can be heard saying “awwwww” in frustration after presumably
being informed by the ranger that the inn was closed due to the
shutdown.
“He is turning guests away from a
private business right now,” Rob Miller, the inn’s general manager said
while filming the scene. “This is the federal government turning guests
away from a private business.”
O’Connell said he houses employees on site and they’ll continue to be fed. He’s taking the shutdown as an opportunity to do some maintenance. But at some point, a decision must be made — he might have to send his employees away to find other work and close early for the season. Generally, he said they close and winterize the inn on October 31. He’s not sure when he’ll make such a call, but he could give it about a week. As for the financial losses with the inn being closed during the beginning of autumn’s colorful season, O’Connell said it’s “irrelevant.”
O’Connell said he houses employees on site and they’ll continue to be fed. He’s taking the shutdown as an opportunity to do some maintenance. But at some point, a decision must be made — he might have to send his employees away to find other work and close early for the season. Generally, he said they close and winterize the inn on October 31. He’s not sure when he’ll make such a call, but he could give it about a week. As for the financial losses with the inn being closed during the beginning of autumn’s colorful season, O’Connell said it’s “irrelevant.”
Although it’s a “big ouch”
financially, he said, “what this revealed to me is a harbinger of things
to come if we don’t get our government under control.”
As for the present, O’Connell said he
thinks the rangers plan to stay outside the inn overnight, but, quite
frankly, O’Connell is OK with that. He thinks with a relatively empty
inn during what would usually be a season, the rangers might provide
some extra security.
“The rangers are caught in a system
they can’t get out of. They’re obligated to follow orders and are not
the problem — it’s all about the process,” O’Connell said.
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