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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2018
Parking: Some
visitors park in the
middle of the street
Continued from Page 1A
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Discarded furniture and other items sit in a room in the basement of the butcher shop.
TV show: ‘You should see our
basement if you want to see scary’
Continued from Page 1A
At one point last April, the
adventurers stayed overnight
in the basement of Gulley’s
Butcher Shop on Commercial
Street.
Co-owner Diana Gulley,
who didn’t know the show
was shooting in the region, had
struck up a conversation with a
crew member who dropped in
to grab a sandwich. He and his
colleagues were filming at the
Liberty Theatre on that block,
he told her, showing a picture
of the theater’s basement.
“He said, ‘Isn’t that scary?’”
Gulley recalled. “And I said,
‘You should see our basement
if you want to see scary.’”
Still not knowing who he
was — she thought the film-
makers were collecting foot-
age for a documentary — she
took him on a basement tour.
A short time later, a pro-
ducer came by and asked if she
Sunlight shines into a room in the basement.
knew about “Ghost Adven-
tures.” She said she’d heard
of it, but explained she doesn’t
watch TV. Then the cast and
crew arrived. She gave them a
follow-up tour while the cam-
eras rolled.
“Real nice guys,” she said.
“Really funny.”
She handed them the key,
signed a secrecy agreement
and left them alone to seek out
whatever spirits lurk on the
premises. The team came and
went over the next couple of
days.
Eerily enchanting as the
butcher shop’s basement is —
with floors strewn with debris,
walls of blackened wood,
antique household items casu-
ally lying around and a chill-in-
ducing ambiance — Gul-
ley doesn’t descend too often.
“I don’t like to be down here
that much,” she said, glanc-
ing around the dim space. “It is
kind of creepy.”
The show, which premiered
10 years ago and is entering
its 17th season, has explored
many locations in the U.S., the
United Kingdom and other far-
flung locations.
For the “Graveyard of the
Pacific” premiere, Gulley said
she probably won’t do any-
thing special. The butcher shop
has already planned an unre-
lated customer-appreciation
party for Saturday afternoon.
“We might come up with a
haunted sausage,” she said.
Some of the discussion
revolved around the effects
of social media and the inter-
net. Fans of “The Goonies,”
the 1985 adventure from a
story by Spielberg, are ded-
icated, passionate and often
well-organized.
In addition to the rejuve-
nated popularity since 2015
due to the movie’s 30-year
anniversary, people from
across the country encourage
others to visit the house, said
Dan Rhoads, owner of several
downtown food carts.
“They all Googled it,”
Rhoads said. “They saw the
movie 30 years ago that they
haven’t seen since then, and
they think they deserve a
right to come into anybody’s
neighborhood.”
From there, the group dis-
cussed several strategies to
counteract the internet and
social media comments.
“Social media seems to be
one of the enemies here, and
outsmarting social media —
that’s, that’s not a bad idea,”
Harrington said.
Neighbors also dis-
cussed some of the behav-
ioral issues with some tourists.
Rhoads said he’s been yelled
at, flipped off and threatened
with physical violence. Some-
one may have even formed
a group to leave poor online
reviews of his food carts.
Some visitors park in the
middle of the street, the wrong
way or in a restricted area.
Others walk on private prop-
erty to find the right angle for
pictures.
Residents sometimes con-
front tourists and snap pictures
of license plates.
“It’s funny how mad they
get,” Rhoads said. “‘You have
no right. It’s my privacy.’
You’re in my neighborhood.”
Some neighbors said
the city should find ways to
accommodate people who
travel long distances to see the
attraction, though most were
not so keen.
Astoria Police Chief Geoff
Spalding said at the beginning
of the meeting that the discus-
sion probably would not last
long. He rethought that about
halfway through.
“I lied when I said I thought
this was going to be a quick
meeting,” Spalding joked.
The police chief will pres-
ent a proposal to the City
Council later this month to
increase parking fines in the
area from $25 to $100, he said.
He added, though, that res-
idents would be subject to the
fines as well unless a permit
system is implemented, which
carries its own complications.
He may organize another dis-
cussion after the City Council
decides on the parking fines.
“It’s funny how mad they
get. ‘You have no right.
It’s my privacy.’ You’re
in my neighborhood.”
Dan Rhoads
owner of several downtown food carts
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Convictions: Law had critics
Continued from Page 1A
through punishment alone,
and that a conviction with the
potential to take away a per-
son’s employment and housing
leaves them poorly situated to
overcome that addiction.”
The Oregon Association
Chiefs of Police and the Ore-
gon State Sheriffs’ Association
endorsed reducing the penalty
for drug possession, with the
understanding drug treatment
would be provided. But the law
had critics at the Legislature
and in law enforcement.
State Sen. Betsy Johnson,
D-Scappoose, was the only
Democrat to vote against the
idea in the Senate. Clatsop
County District Attorney Josh
Marquis warned last year that it
“runs up the white flag” to her-
oin and meth addiction.
Marquis has not changed
his opinion.
“That has a pretty dramatic
effect, and you can see that,”
the district attorney said of
the data after the first year. “I
mean, that’s a huge reduction
in convictions.
“I don’t believe that that
reflects an actual reduction in
the problem.”
Prosecutors and police are
likely being less aggressive
about drug possession given
the misdemeanor penalty and
an overcrowded county jail,
Marquis said. Across the state,
misdemeanor drug convictions
have risen sharply since the
law, but not in Clatsop County.
“There’s really no ques-
tion as to why,” Marquis said.
“Which is that the law has now
said that these are no more
important than a minor van-
dalism charge. And there’s
going to be no long-term
consequences.”
The law, which took effect
in August 2017, reclassified the
possession of small amounts of
drugs from felonies to misde-
meanors. The threshold for her-
oin, for example, is less than 1
gram, while methamphetamine
is less than 2 grams.
People who have any prior
felony conviction, or two or
more drug possession convic-
tions, are not eligible for the
reduced penalty.
Astoria Police Chief Geoff
Spalding has not given his offi-
cers any special direction on
how to approach drug posses-
sion since the change to the
law.
“As far as I’m concerned,
it’s business as usual in terms of
enforcing those laws,” he said.
Company: Cleanup expected to close company
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The Department of Environmen-
tal Quality’s orphan program, used
when the responsible parties are unable
or unwilling to pay, will cover about
$500,000 worth of continued mainte-
nance and monitoring after the cleanup.
The cleanup agreement also includes
at least $130,000 worth of natural
resource damages and a restoration
agreed to by project trustees, includ-
ing tribal governments and natural
resource agencies. The restoration will
include removing old pilings and piers
to improve tidal habitat. At least $75,000
will go to the Columbia River Estuary
Study Taskforce for tidal habitat resto-
ration projects around Youngs Bay.
Local
leaders
had
been
searching for ways to relocate the com-
pany’s specialization in wooden-hulled
boats elsewhere, with the industrial
docks at North Tongue Point a likely
location. Willie Toristoja, co-owner of
WCT Marine & Construction Inc. at
Tongue Point, said he has already hired
two shipwrights from Fastabend and
started taking in some of his former
customers.
“We’re definitely seeing an increase”
in business, he said.
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
The cleanup of Astoria Marine Construction Co., which includes capping
contaminated sediment along the Lewis and Clark River, is expected to close
the 93-year-old company.
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