CigDaze

Best of luck, Robert! Go get 'em!

cig1988

Good luck Majic

tee4texas

What is the lawsuit? I couldn't find any news stories? Anyone have a link?

psychoboater

good luck hope it goes good for you (us)

hp500efi

Good luck Robert!!

Cash Bar

Everyone asking, do a search here, upper right, on Alabama boat ban. I got back about 8 threads all dealing with this. It's is sickening....

tee4texas

soooooooo wrong. How can this happen so quietly?

Magicfloat

I think today's hearing went well.The judge listened to our arguments as to why we believe this law is wrong. He will rule Tuesday on our motion for a prelimenary injuction to prevent the enforcement of the law at the Oct 1 date. My gut feeling is we will get that,but you never know. Then we have to work to get a permanent injuction.The Dept of Conservation testified that they were fine tuning the interpretation as to boat length measurements,speed capability,and definition of a houseboat,and wanted to delay the hearing. Judge said no,we will do the hearing now based on the way the law is currently written.The wierd thing about the whole lawsuit is that we are suing the Dept of Conservation,but the Dept of Conservation did not back the law,in fact,they were against it from the start. But they are charged by the legislature to enforce it,and they say thay cannot enforce it as written. Meanwhile,with all the uncertainty,guess how many Formulas I am selling on those 3 lakes? And another ironic twist is one of the plaintiffs has a 29 Fountain with a single 525,runs maybe 78 mph,and it will be banned,so he said he will just buy a 26' Eliminator Cat with a killer blower motor that can run over 100 mph legally. And the law is suppossed to be about safety?

tee4texas

Magic - great that someone is representing boaters.

Question - I have read through several of the articles. Why are these lakes in particular in the lawsuit? Lake size or number of complaints or ?

THis is crazy unless they are swimming holes.

Magicfloat

tee,originally all 11 Alabama Power Company impoundments were included in the original draft. From there it gets complicated. The original deal was a Lake Harris land developer was trying to land a major resort hotel there,but the developers wanted assurance that there would be no houseboats or loud fast boats allowed. The only company that owned enough land there for a resort like this was AL Power,so they decided to hire lobbyists to push the bill.They enlisted the local senator(defeated for reelection in June ) to introduce the bill. Then the developers found out that Lake Harris was in a dry county,can't have a luxury resort in a dry county,right,so they looked at Lake Martin,all wet counties. Guess who owns most of the land there? Al Power Plus Russell Lands,who also jumped in and hired a high dollar lobbyist.Thru a grass roots effort and 2 senators that knew this was wrong,we got 8 lakes removed from the bill. The 3rd lake, Lake Weiss,stayed in because it is a very small lake,fish boats and pontoons,and their congressman had some clout,plus nobody cared about this small lake. Now the Dept of Cons comes up with a substitute bill, a great bill that would solve all the problems and we all supported. But the Power Co said no,we want the original bill. The Power Co spent enough money to ram it thru the Senate and House.So our only redress is to sue the Dept of Cons,and they are the good guys. What a mess. We will prevail,I believe,because we are right. But who knows. I will try to keep everyone posted. Thanks for listening. Robert