Tag Archives: Cape Ann Seafood Exchange
Cape Ann Seafood Exchange plans to reopen Tuesday
The Cape Ann Seafood Exchange expects to resume landing fish Tuesday, almost two weeks after the U.S. Labor Department effectively shuttered the business by seizing its bank accounts because of unpaid court-ordered damages. Kristian Kristensen, the owner of the fish auction on 27 Harbor Loop, said Thursday night that he had received final paper work from Labor Department officials that unfroze his business and personal bank accounts. “Now we can start putting things back in order, pay some people and hopefully start landing fish again on Tuesday, the day after the holiday,” Kristensen said. “That’s the plan.” >click to read<15:54
Gloucester: Fed seizure of accounts closes fish auction
Last Friday night, without any notice, the U.S. Labor Department seized the bank accounts of the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange, leaving the fish auction and seafood processor unable to pay fishermen for landed fish and imperiling even further its ability to profitably operate on the Gloucester waterfront. CASE owner Kristian Kristensen first knew there was trouble afoot when he started receiving text messages from his bank that his business balance had dipped below $25. “I didn’t put the pieces together until Saturday,” Kristensen said Thursday. “That’s when I knew it was the Department of Labor.” What followed was a business nightmare, as Kristensen tried to contact fishermen and other vendors about his inability to access his bank accounts for payments. >click to read<19:41
New Hampshire fishermen face declining prices
Local commercial fishermen say the price per pound they earn for their catch has dropped in recent years as their industry continues to struggle financially.Fishermen say they have been selling their fish at prices several cents per pound less than in years past, citing strict catch quotas, a decline in businesses that buy their fish and a rise in imported fish as causes for the drop in their earnings. Hampton fisherman David Geothel said prices for small American plaice, a species of flounder on which he relies in the face of strict cod catch limits, have dropped from $1.40 to $1.50 per pound in previous years to between 40 and 70 cents per pound now. >click to read< 21:55
Vessel owner countersues Cape Ann Seafood Exchange
And this is why they call it a counterclaim. Longtime Gloucester fisherman Giuseppe “Joe” DiMaio has responded to the federal lawsuit filed against him by Kristian Kristensen of the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange, refuting many of the details of Kristensen’s initial action and stating the rift between the two business associates originated with a dispute over fish prices. On Jan. 19, Kristensen sued DiMaio and the ownership corporations of his four fishing boats in U.S. District Court in Boston, alleging DiMaio has failed to pay the approximately $710,000 balance remaining on two personal and corporate loans from Kristensen and his related businesses. >click to read< 21:27
Gloucester: Local fishing titans battling in court
Two of the Gloucester waterfront’s heavy hitters are squaring off in federal court in a lawsuit with at least $710,000 at stake — and potentially much more. Kristian Kristensen, owner of the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange auction and Zeus Packing on Rogers Street, is suing longtime Gloucester fisherman Giuseppe “Joe” DiMaio, alleging DiMaio has failed to repay the approximately $710,000 balance remaining on two corporate and personal loans made to him by Kristensen and his related businesses. >click here to read< 20:06 
Gloucester fish company’s owe workers $203K in damages
Kristian Kristensen and his two Harbor Loop companies — Cape Ann Seafood Exchange and Zeus Packing — must pay more than $200,000 in liquidated damages to 132 employees in a settlement over violations of overtime and record keeping. The U.S. Department of Labor said an investigation by its wage and hour division unearthed violations from October 2011 through September 2014. The probe determined Kristensen and the companies owed $203,998 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages. Liquidated damages are monetary compensations for a loss or a person’s rights or property, awarded by a court judgment. click to read the story here 19:08
Northern Shrimp lovers lining up for local catch
Joe Jurek knew his catch would be popular. He just didn’t know how popular. Jurek, a Gloucester-based groundfisherman who specializes in yellow-tail flounder on most fishing days, now holds the rarified position as the only Massachusetts fisherman allowed to fish for northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine. His tenure as shrimper-in-residence will last only two more weeks, much to the dismay of local northern shrimp lovers — including Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken — who literally have trooped down to the dock with buckets to try to buy the cold-water delicacies. The local shrimp have disappeared from seafood retail shops in the last four years the shrimp fishery has been closed. “Once people found out about it, it was like a bunch of seagulls,” said Romeo Theken, who along with a couple other dozen friends put in an order for about 230 pounds of the small, sweet shrimp. “Now people know the process, that they have to sign in at the auction and buy it through a seafood dealer.” Jurek said he’s averaging 350 to 400 pounds of the shrimp per fishing day, which he lands at the Cape Ann Seafood Exchange at an average off-the-boat price of about $6.50 a pound. continue reading the story here 07:28
U.S. Labor Department: Two Gloucester Fish companies on hook for not paying overtime
The U.S. Labor Department has filed suit against two Gloucester waterfront businesses and their owner, seeking more than $200,000 in damages after the company failed to pay overtime to its workers over a three-year period. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston and announced this morning, targets Zeus Packing Inc. and Cape Ann Seafood Exchange, both based at 27 Harbor Loop, and their owner, Kristian Kristensen, is seeking $203,998 in liquidated damages for 132 workers, designed to compensate them for hardship they sustained by not having received the money they should have been paid, said Carlos Matos, the Labor Department’s wage and hour division’s Massachusetts district director this morning. Read the article here 22:28
Cape Ann Seafood Exchange wins $363K S-K grant for facility upgrades
CASE, according to NOAA Regional Administrator John K. Bullard, received $363,604 in this round of funding for its three-pronged strategy that, according to its application, will “enhance and help secure the long-term viability of CASE as a major stakeholder and critical asset to the New England fishing industry and the Gloucester waterfront.” Last year, CASE received $361,670 for its project to build a sustainable redfish fishery by developing new processing methods, purchasing innovative equipment and marketing the species to retailers and consumers. Read the rest here 05:48
Cape Ann Seafood to market redfish – Auction wins $391K to build fishery
GLOUCESTER — Cape Ann Seafood Exchange is the lone Gloucester-based applicant that NOAA is recommending to receive a grant under the long-awaited 2013 Saltonstall Kennedy Grant dispersal of funding. Read more here 08:22
Gloucester: Confronting a crisis – Fishermen shift focus; Tierney renews push for federal aid
Joe Orlando, captain of the mid-sized dragger Padre Pio and president of the 35-boat Gloucester trawl sector, was modifying his nets to keep them closer to the bottom as he shifts his fishing focus from the iconic cod and haddock to dabs — smallest of the flatfish, which burrow in the sand and mud of the Gulf of Maine. He and the rest of the day boat fishermen preparing for the bittersweet opening June 1 of hundreds of nautical miles of water that was closed to fishing through May. continued
