Ripley’s Key West sues BP over spill

[sabra]

Source: South Florida Business Journal

Key West attraction Ripley’s Believe it or Not! has joined a growing chorus of tourism-related companies filing suit over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Although no oil had reached Key West by Wednesday, the operator of the Ripley’s museum – which features, among other things, a white buffalo and a car covered in 10,000 dimes – alleges business already has been harmed by a drop-off in tourism due to the spill’s projected arrival in the Key West region.

Orlando-area attorney Tucker Byrd owns Two Headed Shark LLC, which operates the museum.

“Once it became clear that early oil spill containment efforts had failed, the tourism industry in Florida was immediately affected,” the lawsuit states. “Businesses along the Florida panhandle and down the Florida west coast that cater to vacationers began experiencing an unusually high rate of cancellations ….”

...

Morgan & Morgan, a consumer protection and personal injury firm with offices in several Florida cities and Atlanta, filed the lawsuit in Miami on Tuesday against Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, BP America, Halliburton Energy Services and other companies allegedly responsible for the spill.



Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2010/05/24/daily22.html

[mikelgb]

1. Believe it... Or not!

[flamingdem]

2. Good. BP needs to be picked clean nt

[jberryhill]

3. BP Should Get An Offset From Damages From Ripley's

Once they start pulling three-eyed sharks and conjoined twin dolphins out of the Gulf, Ripley's is going to have a windfall benefit here.

[flamingdem]

4. true! nt

[tomm2thumbs]

5. the rich corporation to battle the rich corporation

:popcorn:

http://www.vancouversun.com/Forbes+estimates+Pattison+worth+billion/2668125/story.html

The Jim Pattison Group is Canada's third-largest privately owned company. Self-made B.C. billionaire entrepreneur Jim Pattison (owns Ripley's) on Forbes magazine's list of the world's wealthiest people with a fortune estimated at $4 billion.


Pattison's pragmatic approach to business was also visible when a former CBC journalist, Russell Kelly, published a highly unflattering biography of Pattison. After another book firm sold the first run of 6,000 copies very quickly, Pattison's Mainland Magazines decided to handle the book and took over its distribution.


Isn't it always nice to be able to buy out the publisher of a book about yourself that you don't like, perchance to stop its distribution?
(hint, you can sometimes find used copies of it sold on Ebay) 'Pattison: Portrait of a Capitalist Superstar'

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pattison-Portrait-Capitalist-Superstar-/400121737045



*link for quote http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Jim-Pattison-Group-Company-History.html