The Church of High Rollaz

From the "This could only happen in Florida" files:

But mostly, folks in this picturesque Gulf Coast city have come to accept that Clearwater is to Scientologists what Salt Lake City is to Mormons, what Mecca is to Muslims. Though not everybody is happy about it.

[...]

The empire's thumbprint on the downtown corridor is considerable and conspicuous, from the uniformed church workers on the streets every day to the two dozen or so Scientology-owned buildings and other properties in the low-slung skyline, many of them fully or partially exempt from property taxes.

Emphasis mine.

Jesus Chuuurist look at that building. The article isn't clear on whether it's a church or just an administrative building. But if your "religion" has a building like that, chances are you can afford to pay property taxes. And that's true even assuming that Scientology didn't already hack the article and photoshop the top few floors off the building. Whenever I buy a house, I'm for sure going to try to get Nateism registered as an official religion.

To be fair, the article states in the final paragraph that the "church" paid about $900,000 in property taxes to the city last year, and its high rolla-ism stimulates the local economy. But still, let Travolta, Cruise and company pay the full tax rate that Joe Blow does, at least.

Rob,

I apologize in advance if this post causes TtP to be hacked by Scientology and revised to remove

the negative comments.