“The Ark Encounter” always promised to be pure ridiculouslness, and it seems that things are starting to come to a head. Basically, it’s a sh!tshow of epic and hopefully legally actionable proportions.

The city of Williamstown, Kentucky, decided to charge a 50 cent “safety tax” to each ticket sold. The purpose of this tax is to pay for government services – police, ambulance, fire and so on – that a tourist “attraction” like this needs to have available to it. Such fees are common for theme parks and the like. Since Ark Encounter was sold to the city as a “For Profit” endeavor, it can (and should) be taxed. But Ken Hamm worked up a way around that… the Ark Encounter for-profit people sold the land to *themselves* for $10.  What was the point? Well, the for-profit Answers In Genesis that owned the land and which in turn is owned by Hamm sold the land to Crosswater Canyon, a religious non-profit organization… that Hamm also owns. And now that it’s a religious non-profit, it can’t be taxed.

Perfectly legal, but ultra-scumbaggery. Unsurprisingly, it has ticked off the city and state government who were sold this bill of goods as being a for-profit enterprise which would bring in bajillions of out of state tourists (it hasn’t) and spur the local economy (it hasn’t). And so…

Kentucky Officials Have Ended the $18 Million Tax Rebate Deal With Ark Encounter

The safety tax was expected to cost the Ark $700 grand a year. They tried to sleaze out of it, and lost themselves $18 million as a result.

Hmm.

So, who wants to prophesy how this is all going to end up? I foresee two possibilities of roughly equal likelihood;

1) The Ark winds up getting sold off and turned into a hotel, casino, something like that.

2) As things start to collapse, the Ark  burns to the ground. Hamm & company blame militant atheists for it, but a whole lot of folks figure it to be an inside job.The insurance companies are *really* interested in looking into how the fire started…