marine industry professionals
R.I. rules marinas can't bar contractors
| Independent marine contractors who were nearly barred from doing business at Rhode Island's largest marina have been cleared by the state to continue to service their customers. |
Independent marine contractors who were nearly barred from doing business at Rhode Island's largest marina have been cleared by the state to continue to service their customers.
The state attorney general's office has upheld a policy issued in 1987 by its antitrust unit that it is illegal for marina operations in Rhode Island to "prohibit independent contractors from working at slips, moorings or outside storage areas, which does not involve risk to the health or safety of nearby boats or persons within the marina." Marinas also cannot "require a person renting either slip, mooring or outside storage space to have repair work performed by the marina's mechanics."
The issue came to the forefront in June when Bassett Boats posted a regulation prohibiting boat owners at Greenwich Bay Marinas from using outside services.
Bassett, based in Springfield, Mass., leases space at Greenwich Bay and has a contract to provide services to boat owners using the facilities, according to the Warwick Beacon. Greenwich Bay Marinas has more than 1,100 slips at its three facilities.
"It seemed like they were monopolizing," says Lauren Nicholson, co-owner of Nicholson Marine Services, a 2-year-old boat repair company that relied heavily on business from boat owners docked at Greenwich Bay Marinas. "It's not that there's any lack of business out there."
Nicholson, her husband and co-owner Andrew, and the owners of Just Service, another independent repair company, complained to the state attorney general's office. Nicholson says they had obtained a letter written Dec. 9, 1987, by then-attorney general James F. O'Neil that addressed antitrust issues regarding marinas. But the independent contractors were uncertain if the directive was still valid.
Nicholson said in a telephone interview today her company would have lost 80 percent of its customers. Additionally, the company had 30 or 40 ongoing jobs at the time the policy was posted, which coincided with the start of the boating season in the Northeast.
"Our customers were livid," she says.
Nicholson says her company continued to service some of its customers at the yards, pending the legal opinion, but was hampered from soliciting new business.
"We were losing business by the day," she says.
Special assistant attorney general Edmund Murray told the Warwick Beacon he was not able to find supporting casework for the 1987 directive, but that there was "no reason to overturn the opinion."
Bassett Boats did not immediately return phone calls to its main office in Springfield.
JoAnn W. Goddard
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