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Scientology's new outpost

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published March 20, 2007

The Church of Scientology arrived in downtown St. Petersburg with lots of hoopla Monday. The grand opening of Scientology's first recruitment center in the city offered food, music and John Travolta for the celebrity-starved. Even the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce gushed, posting the event on its Web site ("RSVP required") and sending chamber president and CEO John T. Long in person to deliver a welcome.

"We wish them luck," Long said of Scientology before the event. "We hope they'll do well in our community, and do well for our community."

One might be fooled - apparently Long was - into thinking something positive has happened downtown. Yet after Travolta jets off to his next Hollywood gig, what will remain in St. Petersburg is a base camp for a controversial organization.

Patterned after the recruitment center in Ybor City, the St. Petersburg office across from Williams Park will send church employees onto the sidewalk to lure potential recruits inside, offering "personality tests" and other inducements that undoubtedly will reveal a flaw that can be corrected only by Scientology courses. In Ybor City, neighboring businesses complained that Scientology recruiters were so numerous and aggressive they scared business away. In downtown Clearwater, Scientology's spiritual headquarters, members crowd the sidewalks but have hardly sparked an economic resurgence.

Maybe the Scientology center in St. Petersburg will prove to be a boon to the downtown economy (which is doing quite nicely on its own). If so, that would be a first.

[Last modified March 19, 2007, 23:16:29]