Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has sided with the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction in its request for a restraining order barring federal fisheries regulators from shuttering the Harbor Loop fish brokerage for 10 days this summer.
Joining a legal battle between the auction and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that’s come to symbolize tensions between fishermen and their regulators, Coakley has now called for any sanction against the auction to be stayed until a pending U.S. District Court appeal of its violations is resolved.
To close the auction, the sales hub of the Gulf of Maine fishery, during its busiest season "would substantially harm the fishing and associated industries in Gloucester and the commonwealth," Coakley wrote in a "friend-of-the-court" brief filed Wednesday.
Read the story in full in the Gloucester Daily Times