Local News : Saturday, January 15, 2000

by Louis T. Corsaletti
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

Ski operators are cracking down on a recent rash of forged season passes and lift tickets, to include arrests and prosecution for theft, fraud or forgery.

At the Summit at Snoqualmie Pass, a couple dozen people have been arrested this season, said spokeswoman Joanne Nelson.

"We are aggressively checking season passes and tickets; we treat it as a theft, and we are committed to prosecuting anyone trying to use phony passes," said Nelson, director of marketing, sales and public relations.

A 23-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man, both from Redmond, were arrested last weekend when a lift checker spotted their bogus passes. They told security personnel and a King County sheriff's deputy they bought the season passes from a man in a Seattle pub for $175 each, much less than the $500 charged by the ski operators.

The same day, an 18-year-old Vashon Island man was stopped by a lift checker after he had made one run. The suspect wouldn't tell security personnel where he bought the lift ticket.

All three were booked into the King County Jail for investigation of fraud and forgery, both felonies.

"Some of the replications are better than others," Nelson said. "Some are laughable."

Valid lift and season passes contain a picture of the bearer and are like a credit card. The fakes are printed on paper and placed in a plastic case.

"We have pretty dedicated ticket and season-pass checkers, and they have made quite a game of it," Nelson said.

At Crystal Mountain, marketing director Stacy Schuster said the owner has installed a new ticket-checking system, and you have to be "awful darned brave" to try to outwit it. Some skiers caught using bogus passes have already been prosecuted, she said.

A hologram and other devices have been added to the credit-cardlike passes, and there is a new season pass that has a different look and feel, she said.

John Gifford, marketing director at Stevens Pass, said people try to use someone else's tickets on a regular basis, but no one has showed up with a counterfeit pass.

"We find, instead, people reselling their tickets in the parking lot as they leave - they charge maybe $10, and that's illegal," he said of the $38 all-day ticket.