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Live Lobster Suspends Operations

Written by  Jacqueline Weaver Monday, March 26, 2012 at 10:42 am

GOULDSBORO — Live Lobster Co. Inc., which has a lobster processing facility in the village of Prospect Harbor, closed its doors Friday after the bank froze its accounts, according to Toni Lilienthal, vice president of operations.

“The bank froze our accounts on Friday afternoon. I don’t know much more,” Lilienthal said Monday. “We had all our financing together. I don’t know what happened.”

“We had to close because we can’t write any checks,” she said. “We can’t do anything until we get the accounts unfrozen.”

Live Lobster is owned by Antonio Bussone, who purchased the Prospect Harbor plant from Bumble Bee Foods Inc. in 2011.

Bumble Bee had been operating a sardine cannery but closed it in April 2010, saying it was hampered by restrictions on herring catches. The Bumble Bee plant employed about 130 people.

Lilienthal said the current closure affects about eight to 10 employees in Prospect Harbor since the processing is relatively slow at this time of year, but the company employed up to 80 people during the height of the season, she said.

The action by TD Bank affects all of the company’s operations, among them businesses in Chelsea and Gloucester, Mass., Kennebunk, Rockland, Stonington, Phippsburg and Canada, she said.

“We had all the checks printed for the fishermen and then got called and told we couldn’t give them out,” Lilienthal said. “It’s just such bad timing on a Friday afternoon.”

She said attorneys were working on the issue over the weekend and were hoping for a resolution Monday morning.

Lilienthal said Bussone said there was no point in anyone coming into work “because I don’t know if we can pay them.”

For more of the latest news, pick up a copy of The Ellsworth American.

Jacqueline Weaver

Jacqueline Weaver

Jacqueline Weaver covers the eastern Hancock County towns of Lamoine through Gouldsboro as well as Steuben in Washington County. A New Hampshire native, she has vacationed in Maine for 25 years and has been with The American for three.

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