HOW WE SEE IT: Dotson’s Ride Fuels Critics In Tourist Town

Anyone who knows Ray Dotson, a former Springdale alderman and purveyor of touristy carriage rides, has to figure he’s having a royal ball in Eureka Springs.

One could say Dotson has a penchant for getting involved in and embracing controversies. At the very least, he doesn’t do much to steer clear of them. This time, he’s managed to raise a ruckus with the Eureka Springs tourism industry with introduction of a “Cinderella” carriage to the streets of the Victorian-style town.

A year and a half ago he obtained, after a drawn-out fight, a franchise to operate a horse-drawn carriage business in the city. Not much had happened since, and one might assume introduction of a new carriage would be no big deal. Dotson’s new ride, however, is a horseless vehicle that started roaming the streets with tourists on July 19.

The carriage is a sight to see on the town’s curvy streets. Its white-painted flowery sphere, lit by small holiday-style lights, sits atop four street tires and an engine. It’s designed to draw attention and cannot help but achieve its goal. Given his history with the Carroll County community, Dotson had to know his launch of tours aboard the kitschy craft would raise a bigger stink than any of his horses could produce.

It took little time for phone calls to start coming in at the Police Department, raising questions about whether Dotson had the legal authority to run his 14-foot-long, eight-seat vehicle. A competing vendor, Olden Days Carriages of Eureka Springs, said the confounding vehicle has no place in Eureka, where that company pulls carriages the “olden” way.

“They went all over town wherever they wanted to go with that little buggy,” said Olden Days Carriages’ Tom Tharp. “That contraption scares the hell out of my horses every time it goes by them.”

In Eureka Springs, the means of delivering horsepower apparently matters a great deal. Critics say Dotson’s hard-won battle to operate on the streets of Arkansas’ famed tourist town included permission exclusively for living, breathing horsepower, not the mechanical variety.

We hate to see this newfangled contraption putting a couple of good horses out of work, but Dotson has again found a way to make hay out of contentious Eureka Springs and promote his business at the same time.

Offcially, city leaders appear divided about whether the motorized carriage’s legality is more fairy tale than fact. Dotson adamantly claims he’s got every legal right run the “carriage” around the town with as many tourists as he can convince to climb aboard. His critics say no way.

In the great horseless carriage debate of 2013, we’ll just have to see where the chips fall.

CASUALTIES OF WAR

To honor the men and women in our armed forces and remind our readers of their sacrifices, the Northwest Arkansas Times/Springdale Morning News is publishing Department of Defense announcements identifying Americans killed in active military operations.

Army Sgt. Corey E. Garver, 26, of Topsham, Maine, died June 23 in Zormat, Afghanistan, of wounds suft ered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, Fort Campbell, Ky.

Army Sgt. Justin R. Rogers, 25, of Barton, N.Y., died June 28 in Bagram, Afghanistan, from a noncombat-related incident under investigation. He was assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.

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