A story oozing up in Rapid City of discrimination at the Grand Gateway Hotel brought to mind our November 2021 post So SD state rep Mulally, a sheriff & a county commish will host Sheriff Mack in Rapid City. The event was held at the Grand Gateway Hotel, with a special $59 Event Room Rate.
At the Mitchell Republic, Christopher Vondracek reported on Tuesday in Rapid City hotel owner under fire for saying she won't rent to Native Americans:
A hotel proprietor in Rapid City who promised to no longer allow Native Americans to rent rooms or use the hotel's restaurant is facing a backlash.
In the now-deleted social media posts, Grand Gateway Hotel owner Connie Uhre offered a special rate to "Rancher and Travelers" but vowed to ban Native Americans on her property following a shooting at her hotel.
Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender on Monday, March 21, shared screen-grabs Uhre's posts.
"In addition to blaming the mayor, police chief, sheriff, candidate for sheriff and the court system, a local hotel bans all Native Americans for a shooting a few days ago on hotel property," wrote Allender, a former police chief. "Neither the shooting or Grand Gateway's response to it reflect our community values." . . .
In addition to apparently trying to ban Native Americans from her hotel, Uhre also alleged without proof that a grant from a Chicago-based nonprofit to combat racial disparities in the criminal justice system had perpetuated violence in the city.
"Rapid City has gone to Hell since the City has been accepting all the Free Money with strings attached," Uhre wrote about the MacArthur Foundation.
The foundation forged a partnership with Pennington County — not Rapid City — to provide $3.5 million to address overcrowding, recidivism, and disproportionate arrests of Indigenous residents in the western South Dakota county. . .
Read the entire article at the Mitchell Republic.
UPDATE: At the Daily Beast, Brooke Leigh Howard and South Dakotan Tom Lawrence report South Dakota Hotelier Slammed for Trying to Ban All Native Americans. [end update]
Back in November, the conservative Dakota War College picked up on our post in State Rep. Tina Mulally hosting former board member of Oath Keepers in Rapid City. Flyer also claims sponsorship by @Outback steakhouse:
The Bluestem Prairie blog is reporting this afternoon that State Representative Tina Mulally is among a group of people and organizations sponsoring Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack at an event in Rapid City next week. . .
Mack has been noted as a long-time Board member of controversial group Oath Keepers up until 2015. The same Oath Keepers group which is cited as having 23 members of their militia group arrested as part of the riot at the US Capitol on January 6th. Mack is appearing in Rapid City as a representative of the “Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officer Association,” a group which has been cited as being controversial in it’s own right as he teaches that “the sheriff has unilateral power to decide which laws should be enforced.”
Rolling Stone and multiple news outlets recently directed national attention at the Oath Keeper group’s South Dakota ties, which featured State Rep. Phil Jensen’s membership in the extremist militia group.
Interestingly, In addition to State Rep. Mulally, former State Rep. Chip Campbell and the Custer County Sheriff sponsoring the controversial speaker, the flyer claims event sponsorship of the event by Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City and Outback Steakhouse.
Do we really think Outback Steakhouse is sponsoring it? I have a sneaking suspicion it’s similar to when Lora Hubbel was hosting an event at Pizza Ranch to talk about masking for COVID..
Apparently the Uhre family does have a connection with Outback Steakhouse after all.
On Monday, Cory Allen Heidelberger reported in Rapid City Mayor Says Local Hotel Trying to Ban Indians:
. . .In his response to Mayor Allender last July, Grand Gateway owner Nick Uhre suggested the MacArthur money is somehow a leftist plot to kill us all with “critical race theory”:
Is Critical Race Theory now in use in our local Criminal Justice System? Is it because of the policies dictated by grants received by the County from the private non-profit MacArthur Foundation?
…MacArthur is clearly a leftist agenda-driven organization. Is their vision of “Justice Reform” what the citizens of Rapid City want? Is it beneficial to the well-being of our community? MacArthur is not accountable to the voters, yet they are driving policy decisions in our county criminal justice system. How will MacArthur leverage their Safety and Justice Challenge Network in the future? Since the advent of MacArthur’s influence on local law enforcement, we’ve seen a huge rise in vagrancy, property crime rates have skyrocketed, violent crime and murders like the brutal killing of Reta McGovern in her own home are far more common.
Criminals are emboldened to offend because they are more aware of the arrest restrictions and racial quotas imposed on law enforcement than the average citizens who become their victims [Nick Uhre, “Racial Quotas in Law Enforcement Are Emboldening Offenders,” Rapid City Journal, 2021.07.28].
Uhre is also chairman of Concerned Businesses of Rapid City, Inc., a non-profit he organized on February 1, 2021, with Outback Steakhouse proprietor Jasmine Stangle and hail repairman Duane Langenfeld. Perhaps the other concerned businesses that are part of this non-profit should express concern to their chairman and his family that openly declaring a ban on Indians isn’t good for anyone’s business in Rapid City… except the civil rights lawyers who may rain fire on the Grand Gateway and Cheers shortly.
The Dakota War College notes in a post on Tuesday, This is not going to end well for the people making these horrendous statements.
Indeed.
Image: The now deleted tweet.
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