He claims the Devils take his kind most.

• Position: Ski resort owner sues town of Seven Devils - Brief Article

Leonard Cottom is raising hell at Seven Devils, the mountain community where the owner of Hawksnest Golf & Ski Resort says police are harassing his customers. The goal, he says, is to drive him out of business. Nonsense, Town Manager Eric Davis retorts.

The death of a snowboarder in February heated up the feud between Cottom and Seven Devils, a town of about 140 full-time residents, mostly retirees. After learning that snowboarding instructor Chad Edwards, 22, had been drinking at the resort before he crashed into a tree, Davis turned the case over to the State Bureau of Investigation for toxicological tests.

That put a "criminal spin" on an accident, Cottom says, adding that Edwards had two white Russians with dinner. Davis says he called in the SBI because of a lawsuit Cottom filed in April 2000 in U.S. District Court in Asheville. The $1.8 million suit accuses Police Chief Joe Ray Buchanan and the town of violating his civil rights the previous New Year's Eve. It claims officers began checking IDs at Hawksnest lounge minutes before midnight to spoil the celebration.

The feud dates to April 1997, when Hawksnest sponsored a party for students from nearby Appalachian State University. Cottom figured to make about $10,000 selling pizza, hamburgers and beer to what he...