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City initiates blight court proceedings tied to abandoned lifeboats after WBRZ report
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BATON ROUGE - The City of Baton Rouge initiated blight court proceedings against the owner and former tenant of a property after a WBRZ report showed abandoned lifeboats ditched in the middle of an empty lot near Mid City.
Residents in Baton Rouge called them an eyesore.
The area in question is bordered between North Boulevard and Government Street not far from the Electric Depot. A total of six lifeboats were dropped off a few years ago. Satellite imagery from space shows the lifeboats first arrived sometime in 2020.
Some of the boats bear the name "Ocean Voyager." Maritime records show a vessel bearing that name carries passengers.
"It's trifling and trashy to be sitting up on the road like that on a lot like it is," Jacqueline Arthur said.
The letter that was sent to the owner and tenant was sent 10 days after the WBRZ report. It gives them until April 3, 2023 to remove the boats or they'll have to appear in court on April 6, 2023.
Arthur said she's been looking at the boats for years, wondering why the city allowed them to just sit there like that.
"When I saw it, I said that ain't nothing but a bunch of junk that they left on the side of the road," Arthur said. "I thought they were going to use it for something and just saw it sitting up there."
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