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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 2018)
SOMEBODY’S GOTTA DO ’EM COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2018 145TH YEAR, NO. 162 New owner looks to double Circle Creek RV Resort’s size ONE DOLLAR Sheriff’s office to auction off Riverwalk Inn debt Astoria claims Smithart owes $139,195 By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian The Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday will publicly auction the right to money owed by Portland hotelier Param Hotel Corp. to former Astoria Riverwalk Inn operator Brad Smithart. Astoria secured a writ of garnishment against Smithart last month in Circuit Court, claiming he owes $139,195 in lodging taxes, attorney fees and interest. The auction will take place 10 a.m. Thurs- day at the sheriff’s office in Warrenton. The opening bid will be made by City Attorney Blair Henningsgaard. See DEBT, Page 7A Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian The Circle Creek RV Resort south of Seaside was recently sold after being owned by Sharon Roper since 2001. Carbon sequestration proposed as ‘cap-and-trade’ alternative RV park now has 44 spots By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian S EASIDE — The Circle Creek RV Resort along U.S. Highway 101 has been sold for $2.1 million. The new ownership hopes to double the park’s size by next summer. The RV park sits on an 11-acre penin- sula bounded to the south, west and north by the Necanicum River and Highway 101 to the east. It has been owned since 2001 by Sharon Roper, 73, who is retir- ing to Sisters. “I lived in Phoenix where I owned a company that made fences for horses,” she told The Daily Astorian in a 2011 business feature. “After I visited this area in the 1980s I decided that if I ever had the opportunity to live here, I would take it.” In a news release about the sale, Roper said one of the highlights about running Circle Creek was getting to work with her daughter, Tina, and son, Michael, who helped manage the park, and meet- ing enthusiastic visitors to the coast. See RV PARK, Page 7A By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Bureau SALEM — Oregon’s forestry and envi- ronmental regulators would study sequester- ing carbon as a possible alternative to penal- izing emissions under a bill before the state House Agriculture Committee. Lawmakers are debating a controversial “cap-and-trade” proposal under which com- panies that exceed a ceiling on carbon emis- sions could buy credits from those that fall below it. Timber companies and several law- makers are advocating for a less publi- cized carbon-related bill that would require the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Forestry to evaluate using natural ecosystems to absorb and store The resort south of Seaside is surrounded by the Necanicum River. See CARBON, Page 7A Distillers could get a bigger shot of sales State bill would boost some local distilleries By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Two Clatsop County dis- tillers and others around the state could keep all revenue from tasting rooms under a bill pending in Salem. The Oregon Liquor Con- trol Commission buys in bulk and owns liquor sold retail at liquor stores or distillery tast- ing rooms. Distillers get 49 percent of the retail profits at liquor stores and 68 percent at tasting rooms. Senate Bill 1564 would create a tasting room permit- ting system and allow up to $250,000 in sales per year without fees. The bill would allow multiple tasting rooms away from the distillery and let licensed out-of-state distill- ers open locations in Oregon. The change could be a big boon for small distillers such as Astoria’s Pilot House Dis- tilling and Cannon Beach Dis- tillery, where the vast majority of sales are in tasting rooms. Mike Selberg, owner of Cannon Beach Distillery, sold 571 cases of liquor from his on-site tasting room last year and said he paid the state more than $105,000 in fees, about 33 percent of the liquor’s retail value. “The OLCC never touched these spirits,” he said. “They never went to an OLCC ware- house or liquor store. We did all the work to manufacture and sell these bottles.” The fees were nearly twice the distillery’s payroll for four employees and 25 percent of gross receipts last year, he said. Larry Carry runs Pilot House with his wife, Christina, in Astoria. About 70 percent of the distillery’s sales come from an adjoining tasting room on Duane Street. See BILL, Page 7A The Daily Astorian Mike Selberg, owner of Cannon Beach Distillery, was one of two distillers to testify Monday in Salem on behalf of a bill to let the industry avoid state fees on tasting room sales of up to $250,000 a year.