May 8, 2017 — As we have mentioned several times in the past, they don’t seem to brook a whole lot of foolishness up in Maine, particularly when it comes to cheating in the commercial fishing business.
So, it wasn’t really surprising when the Gloucester Daily Times received — ran — a letter last week from Maggie Raymond, the highly respected executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine, with her take on what should happen to convicted scammer Carlos Rafael’s surrendered groundfishing permits.
“For law-abiding fishermen, this day is long overdue,” Raymond wrote. “While other fishermen were complying with steep reductions in fishing quotas, Rafael decided those rules didn’t apply to him. Rafael’s violations set back groundfish rebuilding requirements, and forced others to compete with his illegal activity on the fishing grounds and in the market.”
But Raymond wasn’t done there. She followed by offering a solution for the distribution of Rafael’s still-to-be-decided permit forfeitures. It’s one sure to make New Bedford Mayor Jon F. Mitchell choke on his Wheaties.
“Rafael’s history is so egregious that the National Marine Fisheries Service is obliged to cancel all his groundfish permits and fishing privileges,” she wrote. “Existing regulations describe a process for redistributing the fishing privileges from cancelled permits to all other permit holders in the fishery — and this is precisely the process that should be followed in this case.”