Is Bells Being Evicted?

[billintulsa]

If I understood KRMG news correctly, the lease for Bell's is up and the fairgrounds does not consider bells to be a viable business so the lease won't be renewed.

Or did I just misunderstand?

[ky]

[8D]my husband works for pepsi and the owner of bells grips every time he has to pay for his soda but yet he'll continue to charge 3.00 for a glass of soda. he hasnt paid his lease in several years and the equipment is not safe the city asked for his books and his plans for the next 5 years and he had no response.

[Big]

Bells has paid more in rent than anyone else at the fairgrounds save for the Fair. They did respond with a business plan that included over a million dollars worth of improvements and a letter of intent from a bank. I am not sure what else the county wants to see. The county is playing games with Bells. They want the land for something, probably parking, but they do not want to admit it. Tulsa will lose Bells to one of the suburbs who are lined up with open arms for them. We have spent millions in support of horse and animal barns at the Fairgrounds, but we are beating up Bells for paying over $10,000.00 a month last year. Great plan Tulsa County.

[sgrizzle]

Robbie Bell poked the fairgrounds with a stick enough times so he shouldn't be surprised that he finally got bit.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Robbie Bell poked the fairgrounds with a stick enough times so he shouldn't be surprised that he finally got bit.

Not just the fairgrounds. He ran a stop sign and hit a friend of mine leaving the fairgrounds parking. His behaviour was despicable. Refused to take blame, has dragged an open/shut case out for a year. People remember these things.

[Conan71]

My wife's uncle owns an amusement company up in the St. Louis area and has known the Bells and Jerry Murphy for some time.  He passed through here during the holidays and told me not to be surprised if the "parking lot" they are talking about for the old Bell's propery winds up with some of Murphy's rides parked there.  Of course that's just "carnie" speculation though. []

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Clark Brewster, now of the fair board, represent the family that sued Bell's after the fatality on the Wildcat?

I have a feeling there is a lot more in the background than anyone is willing to speak publicly about.

[TheArtist]

quote:Originally posted by Big

Bells has paid more in rent than anyone else at the fairgrounds save for the Fair. They did respond with a business plan that included over a million dollars worth of improvements and a letter of intent from a bank. I am not sure what else the county wants to see. The county is playing games with Bells. They want the land for something, probably parking, but they do not want to admit it. Tulsa will lose Bells to one of the suburbs who are lined up with open arms for them. We have spent millions in support of horse and animal barns at the Fairgrounds, but we are beating up Bells for paying over $10,000.00 a month last year. Great plan Tulsa County.

Why haven't some of these "millions of dollars" been used before to spruce the place up?  A few hundred dollars of paint and rust remover, cleaning up the put put course etc. would have gone a loooong way in improving the parks image problems. It looks like a dump and an embarassment as Tulsas main amusement park.

As for business plans, as I have mentioned before, we have all seen them before from Robby.  Usually around each seasons opening time. He gets lots of free publicity on the TV  news and in the papers, then nothing happens.  What happened to the western theme he was going to do the park in, had all those neat renderings of what it was going to look like and everything. Nothing happened, the park only got worse.  The new coaster, took over a decade to figure out he could put it on the other side of the park, but would use the issue each season to get in the papers again.  

If the fair board was like any of the rest of us, we are tired of seeing new business plans, then geting our hopes up, only to see the park fall further into ruin.    

Enough is enough, how many more times does that have to happen before people stop believing the guy?  You can only do that so many times to people before they just dont believe you anymore.  Great, here is another plan, a million dollar plus plan.  Is it the same ol thing as before?  Will it fail to happen for some reason or another once again? He has had pleeeenty of time before this last year to make that park into a fun, clean, wonderful place to spend the day. I am not going to feel sorry for someone who has let this once fine amusement park fall into ruin, all the while watching other amusement parks grow and become better. I remember when Silver Dollar City was smaller than Bells, now look at them.