OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, July 20, 2019
East Oregonian
A9
Cossacks: Defying death on motorcycles at Pendleton Bike Week
Continued from Page A1
said, shrugging.
On Friday afternoon,
the Wrights and the Seat-
tle Cossacks returned to
Pendleton Bike Week and
ignited a weekend full of
stunts, human pyramids and
maneuvers on 1930s- and
1940s-style Harley-David-
sons throughout the Pendle-
ton Convention Center park-
ing lot.
The Cossacks were orig-
inally formed in 1938 and
named after a Russian cav-
alry that was famous for
its horsemanship. Now, the
group consists of 14 active
members that perform 20 to
30 shows around the country
each year.
George is just the latest
member of the Wright fam-
ily to become a part of the
group’s stunt and drill shows.
Jimi Wright’s grandfather,
father and uncle were also
members of the team. Jimi
joined along with his brother
in the 1970s.
George’s three brothers,
including Cole Wright and
Brayden Laukala who are
also performing this week-
end, are also members.
Now an apprentice on the
team, George rode along on
the back of the bikes, fulfill-
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Members of the Seattle Cossacks Motorcycle Stunt and Drill
Team perform at the Pendleton Convention Center Friday af-
ternoon. The performance was one of five that took place as
a part of Pendleton Bike Week.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
A member of the Seattle Cossacks Motorcycle Stunt and Drill Team jumps over another pair of
team members during a performance at the Pendleton Convention Center Friday afternoon.
ing his role as a “top man”
and climbing atop the group’s
three-body-high human pyr-
amid with three bikes as the
base. As he rose to the top,
his arms stretched high into
the sky, arms locked with two
others beside him as dozens
of people sat around to watch.
Still without his license
or motorcycle endorsement
at just 15 years old and eas-
ily one of the smallest on the
older and experienced team,
George will have to wait
to drive in shows until he’s
been accepted as a full-time
member.
But given his family’s his-
tory, being a Seattle Cossack
always seemed like a forgone
conclusion.
“We always knew we’d
be a part of the team,” Cole
said. “We grew up going to
and watching the shows, so
we’ve always wanted to be a
part of them.”
Jimi Wright doesn’t shy
away from bringing their
family dynamic to the show.
One of the team’s stunts
includes propping a plank
of wood up on one of its
members as a couple of oth-
ers lie down perpendicular
to the ramp. Then, a rider
revs his bike up and off the
ramp, jumping over the other
members.
As the team arranged
for the stunt on Friday, Jimi
Wright got onto his bike
while George and the oth-
ers positioned themselves on
the asphalt, the plank leaning
against George’s stomach.
“You’re going to run
over your own son?” one of
the members called from
the center of the lot as Jimi
started his bike.
“I’ve been waiting for this
for years,” Jimi said, chuck-
ling to the crowd and riding
over to the front of the make-
shift straightaway.
Revving his engine, Jimi
began burning out his tires on
the asphalt to build the ten-
sion before speeding toward
George and the ramp only to
pull away several feet before
going over it.
As the crowd laughed,
the Cossacks repositioned
themselves with some larger
members below the plank
this time so that Jimi could
actually complete the jump.
With their jump and other
stunts completed, the entire
team rode around the edges of
the lot to give every member
of the crowd a high five before
settling into a line. As they
took off their caps and tipped
them to the crowd, the Seattle
Cossacks were greeted with
cheers and applause for the
show that’s been generations
in the making.
Guns: Similar bill withdrawn last year
Continued from Page A1
back the storage require-
ments as a standalone
proposal.
Initiative Petition 40
would require that gun
owners store their guns
with a cable or trigger lock
engaged, or in a secure
container with a tam-
per-resistant lock. Speci-
fications for the container
would be established by
the state’s health agency.
Generally
speaking,
the petition’s provisions
would only be felt by gun
owners after it became
evident that a gun wasn’t
stored to the specifications
in the measure: For exam-
ple, if a child obtained a
gun that was not securely
stored, and got hurt, the
gun owner would be held
liable.
Under the measure,
a gun owner would be
expected to report lost
or stolen guns to police
within 24 hours of learn-
ing of the loss or theft.
The measure wouldn’t
mean that police would go
proactively into homes to
check that guns are stored
safely.
Henry Wessinger, who
filed the petition in person
Thursday, believes the bill
can pass if it is its own bill
in the short legislative ses-
sion next year.
“While we were dis-
appointed that we didn’t
get safe storage passed in
2019, we’re not discour-
aged,” Wessinger said,
“Because we think that
we’ve built a really strong
base of support, and are
well positioned for pass-
ing it in the 2020 short
session.”
Oregon
lawmakers
have a roughly five-month-
long session in odd-num-
bered years, and meet for
up to 35 days in even-num-
bered years.
Safe storage is the
House’s top gun safety pri-
ority in 2020, a spokesman
for House Speaker Tina
Kotek, D-Portland, said
in an email to the Oregon
Capital Bureau.
Proposing the ballot
initiative is a sort of insur-
ance policy — a backup
plan in case lawmakers
don’t pass a safe storage
bill in the 2020 session.
In order for the measure
to pass next year, it will
have to gain support from
a majority of representa-
tives and senators in each
chamber.
Democrats hold com-
fortable majorities in
each chamber, but not all
of them have supported
stricter gun laws in the
past.
Wessinger
believes
the bill can get enough
support.
He maintains a good
share of Oregonians sup-
port the proposal, and that
it’s not a partisan issue.
When
petitioners
attempted to get a similar
measure on the ballot last
year, they commissioned
a poll from Patinkin
Research Strategies that
showed 65% of respon-
dents would have sup-
ported a measure “requir-
ing firearms be locked up
when they are not being
used and requiring the
reporting of lost or stolen
guns.”
Senate
Republican
Leader Herman Baertsch-
iger Jr., of Grants Pass,
said Thursday that he had
not had a chance to review
the initiative petition, but
there is a possibility he
could support some kind
of safe storage bill.
“I certainly don’t know
what they would look
like,” Baertschiger said.
Baertschiger said he
believes more education
would help keep children
safe from accessing guns.
“I grew up around guns
in our household, and kids
were taught, ‘Don’t touch
guns,’ period,” Baertsch-
iger said. “No problem.
When you were a kid, and
you see a gun, you knew,
don’t touch it. … I think
we’ve lost some of that in
our households … we’re
not going to let our 6-year-
old go out and run a chain
saw, are we? Why would
we let him have access to
a gun?”
The National Rifle
Association would likely
oppose another storage
bill, according to Roger
Beyer, an Oregon lobbyist
for the group.
The NRA opposed Sen-
ate Bill 978, the overall
gun control bill.
That bill contained the
safe storage provisions,
with some key differences
from the petition.
For instance, SB 978
contained criminal penal-
ties for the gun owner if a
minor obtained a firearm
unlawfully, and the minor
killed or injured someone,
a provision that petitioners
have removed from IP 40.
“We feel very strongly
that we’d like to use a seat
belt model of changing
behavior,” Wessinger said.
“The goal is not to penal-
ize gun owners.”
Most Oregon gun own-
ers store their guns in ways
that align with the petition,
Wessinger said. His goal is
to encourage the remain-
der to do so.
Supporters must gather
1,000 sponsorship signa-
tures to get ballot language
approved to circulate Ini-
tiative Petition 40.
The petition then needs
112,020 signatures to get
onto Oregonians’ ballots
next November.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Angela Walken stands in front of her Southwest Court Avenue vacation rental. Walken rents out
her house through a variety of services such as Airbnb to both short-term and long-term renters.
Airbnb: Property owners must comply
Continued from Page A1
Carter said the problem is that
many Airbnb operators either
don’t know they need to pay a
lodging tax or assume Airbnb
is already collecting the lodg-
ing tax on their behalf.
Although Airbnb has deals
with some Oregon cities and
counties to act as a tax collec-
tor, it doesn’t have an agree-
ment with Pendleton.
Carter said the lack of
tax collection coordination
isn’t just restricted to vaca-
tion rental website, but also
extends to third-party online
booking services, which is
increasingly becoming the
way many travelers arrange
for lodging.
The city assesses two dif-
ferent taxes on travelers who
stay the night in Pendleton:
an 8% lodging room tax and
a $1.50-per-night tourism pro-
motion assessment charge.
The majority of the money
generated from those two
taxes goes toward the Pend-
leton Convention Center and
the Pendleton Chamber of
Commerce.
With Oregon charging its
own lodging taxes, the state
has been discussing the issue
of tax collection with Airbnb
for years.
In 2018, the Legislature
passed a bill that gave local
governments the ability to
collect taxes from Airbnb and
other travel intermediaries.
Once the letter went out,
the need to collect their own
taxes came as a surprise to a
couple of Airbnb operators.
Andre Rauch and his wife
are currently based in the Port-
land area, but they recently
bought a home on the North
Hill to be closer to his fami-
ly’s wheat farms in the Pend-
leton and Lexington areas.
The house has operated
as an Airbnb for the past six
months as the couple plans
its eventual move back, and
Rauch said it would proba-
bly be booked every day if he
didn’t block out time for per-
sonal use.
Rauch said his vacation
rental has found an audience
with people looking to find a
meet-up destination between
the Northwest epicenters of
Portland, Spokane and Boise.
Angela Walken has also
found her Southwest Court
Avenue Airbnb, which goes
by the “The Court House,” to
be very popular.
“It’s been as busy as I can
handle,” she said.
Walken splits her time
between Eugene and Pendle-
ton, and her entry into vaca-
tion rental sprung out of curi-
osity over whether she could
take advantage of her prop-
erty’s proximity to the down-
town area and the Round-Up
Grounds.
The Court House does
host guests for big events like
the recent Pendleton Whisky
Music Fest, but Walken said it
also attracts people looking to
stay in town months at a time.
Although both Walker
and Rauch are now comply-
ing with the city’s lodging tax
laws, they both said it would
be easier if Airbnb collected
the taxes for them.
Carter said the city is
working on drafting a law that
would require Airbnb to col-
lect taxes on the city’s behalf
to address this issue.
Airbnb did not respond to
a request for comment as of
press time.
Marijuana: Kind Leaf trying to bring in more tourists with billboards
Continued from Page A1
“This is by far the most
organized one, in my opin-
ion,” Jake said. “A lot more
professional, I have to say,
compared to the other ones
I’ve been to on the coast.”
That’s the kind of praise
Kind Leaf owner Bran-
don Krenzler aims to
achieve. The store has 300
to 500 customers a day, he
said, and 70% — roughly
100,000 customers a year
— are from out of the area.
Those numbers spiked with
the festival.
“We saw double the
number of people we see in
a normal Friday,” he said.
“That was the best Whisky
Fest Friday we’ve seen.”
Kind Leaf’s claim to
fame is its stock of vari-
ety — 160 strains of mar-
ijuana and close to 3,000
cannabis products in the
store. Staffers said as many
as 25 customers shopped at
any given time on the Sat-
urday of the festival, with
10 or more waiting to pass
through the door to the inte-
rior. The store sold 284 mar-
ijuana cartridges for vapor-
izer pens, a large amount
for any day, and so many
“pre-rolls” — joints —
they could not count them
all Saturday night. Kren-
zler added he had no doubt
the two marijuana stores in
town also experienced an
uptick with the festival.
Staff at Pendleton Can-
nabis estimated 35% of its
customers are people from
outside Pendleton. The busi-
ness had a boost during the
music fest but also benefits
year-round from its location
on Southgate/Highway 395
near the Interstate 84 inter-
change at milepost 209.
Kristen Dollarhide is
the tourism and hospital-
ity coordinator for Travel
Pendleton, the tourism arm
of the Pendleton Chamber
of Commerce (Kind Leaf,
Pendleton Cannabis and the
East Oregonian are cham-
ber members). She said she
would not be surprised if
Krenzler’s 100,000 visitors
was correct.
“There is a piece of tour-
ing that does belong to mar-
ijuana,” she said.
People come from Idaho
to visit Pendleton’s dispen-
saries, she said, and the
local stores likely draw res-
idents from neighboring
Union County, while Hun-
tington’s successful mari-
juana store pulls in people
from Baker County and the
like. She also said the “Ore-
gon 2017 Regional Visi-
tor Report Eastern Region”
from the travel industry
research firm Longwoods
International included mar-
ijuana tourism for the first
time (voters legalized recre-
ational marijuana in 2014),
and placed it under the list
of “activities of special
interest.”
Oregon’s eastern region
totaled 2.5 million over-
night trips, according to the
report. About 5% of those
were for business, 42% to
visit friends or family, and
53%, or 1.3 million, were
marketable trips, that is, lei-
sure trips. And 42% of those
trips visited historic places,
topping the special inter-
est list. But 7% of the trips
included marijuana tour-
ism. That was higher than
agritourism (6%), traveling
with grandchildren (6%)
and going to weddings (5%).
Visitors on marketable
trips spent an average of
$95 a day, including $39 for
lodging, $20 for food and
$10 for recreation, sightsee-
ing and entertainment.
Dollarhide said a cou-
ple of people at trade shows
have asked about canna-
bis tours, but that’s not on
her radar. Such tours could
happen in bigger cities with
legal pot, she said, but East-
ern Oregon’s open spaces
provide a problem because
no one wants people driv-
ing high.
Krenzler is trying to
bring in more tourists. Kind
Leaf put up an advertis-
ing billboard along Inter-
state 84 west of Baker City
urging travelers to come
to Pendleton and a second
billboard near I-83 exit 213
welcoming them to town.
Krenzler said the goal is to
grow tourism beyond rely-
ing on the annual Pendleton
Round-Up to buoy the local
economy, and marijuana is
one more draw to the area.
“Instead of surviving on
one week of tourism a year,”
he said, “we’re helping with
year-long tourism.”