I need to watch this. It is going to be on the Sundance Channel towards the end of February.
When I was a County Sanitarian (Health Inspector) in Arkansas from 1983 to 1989, I had to deal with several Tony Alamo businesses. They had a restaurant, at least one convenience store I remember. They had a hog farm that was something out of a Mel Gibson Mad Max movie. Between myself and another agency we got them to close that down. I had to get on their main property one time to investigate a sanitation complaint. They blocked my entrance, and of course by the time I went through all the legal hoops, if there had been a problem they had covered it up. Fortunately, I never had to deal with Tony directly.
The rumor around town was that he kept his wife’s body on display on the property. Not quite sure what the real story was on that one.
Most of the folks that worked at the businesses were young, lost youngsters, frequently former(?) addicts. I do know that several of them won a law suit against the Alamo Foundation as they were not even being paid minimum wage. The Foundation claimed that their work was “therapy” and under some sort of religious exemption.
Heaven save me from religious.
