Visitors to town need helpful hints
Spokane has problems, sure.
Our streets are rotten. The city budget’s a mess. The north/south freeway is a bigger myth than Bigfoot.
On the seamier side, we’ve got our share of meth cooks, petty thieves and the assorted ne’er-do-wells you’d expect to find in any city this size.
But while we’re far from perfect, I’m not about to sit still and listen to John Sieckert lay any of the blame on my hometown for his getting his clock cleaned last month at the Hotel Lusso.
“I think Spokane has a very, very serious problem,” said Sieckert in a story that appeared in The Spokesman-Review a few days ago.
“It’s a very nice town, but I hope they get a handle on their crime.”
Get a handle on our crime?
Hey, pal, I think you’d better first get a grip on your common sense.
Sieckert is a businessman who lives in Boise. He was in Spokane on a business trip the night of Oct. 20, when he says he befriended a stranger at the Satellite Diner.
The way Sieckert tells it, he was so impressed with the guy’s potential that he invited him back to his room at the Lusso to hand him a business card.
Once inside the room, the stranger’s real nature came out. He kicked and beat Sieckert to a bloody pulp. The stranger then forced Sieckert to reveal his PIN code and took his ATM card. He left poor Sieckert tied to a chair.
Police have arrested 26-year-old Erik R. Dickson on a mulligan stew of charges that include kidnapping, robbery, extortion, assault, theft. If they had a charge for impersonating a human being, Dickson would probably get that, too.
If Sieckert’s story holds up and Dickson is found guilty, I hope this punk gets tossed inside the can so long that he’ll qualify for Medicare by the time he gets out.
Nobody should go through the physical and mental torture John Sieckert endured. He tells a horrific tale of his tormentor stuffing family photographs of his children into his mouth.
“I didn’t think I would ever see them again,” said Sieckert in the newspaper article. “Every time I look at my kids I want to cry.”
Maybe Sieckert is just a Samaritan who got punished trying to do a good deed.
Maybe bringing strangers to your hotel room is the way business prospects are recruited in folksier cities like Boise.
If that’s the case, then we as a community need to make an effort to warn gullible and naive outsiders about the pitfalls that may await them during a visit to the River City.
To that end I have prepared the following valuable tips that should be included in the next Chamber of Commerce brochure.
I give you the Out-of-Town Businessman’s Guide to Surviving Spokane:
1. If a stranger on the sidewalk at First and Madison offers you an 8-ball, he’s NOT challenging you to a game of pool at Far West Billiards.
2. People hanging outside the Bus Plaza are NOT valets. Don’t give them your car keys – even if they promise to squeegee your windshield for free.
3. The Hells Angels may call their Sprague Street headquarters a “clubhouse,” but they will NOT honor your Rotary, Eagles or VFW memberships.
4. When the women standing along East Sprague refer to the missionary position, they are NOT asking you to attend a Bible study.
5. Aryan cross-lighting ceremonies are NOT part of the city Christmas holiday lights tour.
6. The shabby guy holding the cardboard “will work for food” sign is really NOT looking for a job.
7. If a tough drunk in a bar suddenly turns to you and says, “You looking at me?” do NOT make a snide observation about bad breath or shoddy dental work.
8. If anyone asks if you’d like to come see the marmots, please remember: Spokane does NOT have a zoo.
9. Just because Dick’s Drive-in sells burgers by the bag full doesn’t mean you have to try to eat them all at once.
10. If you’re in the habit of giving strangers your business card, make sure to keep an ample supply – IN YOUR WALLET!