Saving Seafood

Massachusetts: SouthCoast fishermen call NOAA’s civil action against Carlos Rafael ‘overkill’

January 12, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Current and former area fishermen balked at NOAA’s reach in its civil action against Carlos Rafael.

“It’s total overkill,” said Stephen Lozinak, captain of fishing vessel Marsheen Venture and who has been fishing for more than five decades. “The whole thing is overkill. All it’s doing is hurting the workers in the city of New Bedford.”

On Wednesday, NOAA laid out its civil case against Rafael, including revoking 38 commercial fishing permits and the operator permits of two scallop vessel captains. Other aspects include a $983,528 penalty, denying any future application by Rafael for a permit issued by NOAA, and revoking the seafood dealer permit issued to Carlos Seafood Inc.

Most of the allegations surround Rafael’s criminal activity, which he pleaded guilty to in March. However, NOAA also included allegations surrounding mislabeling scallops harvested in 2013 and misreported yellowtail flounder in 2012.

“It seems to be a much more severe penalty than the crimes called for,” Executive Director of New Bedford Seafood Consulting Jim Kendall said.

The sentiments echoed those of Mayor Jon Mitchell.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Boat left at dock arrested for debts

September 16, 2015 — At the beginning of last winter, the owners of the fishing vessel Irish Piper brought their 41-foot wooden boat from Maine to the Gloucester Marine Railways for repair and wharfage, then vanished, never returning to claim their boat or pay for the services rendered by the boat yard.

“They never even checked on it and never came back,” said Viking Gustafson, general manager of the railways. “It just got dumped at the dock.”

Gustafson said the Irish Piper’s owners — listed in court documents as Keith Butterfield of New Bedford and Stephen Lozinak of Newbury — failed to respond to a litany of phone calls and correspondence seeking payment or the removal of the vessel.

So, the railways did what you might expect: it sued Butterfield and Lozinak in U.S. District Court in Boston for payment of the more than $7,000 owed for tending to the craft throughout last winter, including a pair of haulings to protect the vessel from two of the season’s most severe storms.

Read the full story from the Gloucester Daily Times