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MAY 3, 2019
Punkin Chunkin pitched Inlet lot proposed as site for November lord of gourds competition By Josh Davis News Editor (May 3, 2019) Ocean City Council members on Tuesday took the first steps to bring the World Championship Punkin Chunkin event to the resort this November. The event, held during the first full weekend after Halloween in Delaware from 1986 through 2013, has struggled to find a permanent home because of legal issues. Event organizers quarreled in 2011 with a Bridgeville, Delaware landowner who for many years provided a venue for the contest. That suit was later settled out of court. Punkin Chunkin later moved to
SERVING NORTHERN WORCESTER COUNTY the Dover International Speedway, but was again halted after 2016 because of an injury-related lawsuit. Suzanne Dakessian, a television producer associated with the show, was severely injured when one of the launching devices exploded. Reportedly, she and another person were standing in a restricted area at the time. A deal to bring Punkin Chunkin to Ocean City apparently materialized during the last several weeks and was part of Bob Rothermel’s T.E.A.M. Productions Event Enhancements proposal to the City Council during Tuesday’s work session. His suggested 2019 events lineup included two dozen fireworks shows divided between the Talbot Street Beach and Northside Park, an Aug. 24 outdoor concert in conjunction with the Art X festival, and O.C.toberfest happenings, which would include a beach maze on Oct. 19, 20, 27 and 28, and a pet parade and “Great Pumpkin Race.” A surprise addition was the World Championship Punkin Chunkin contest, Nov. 1-3 at the Ocean City Inlet parking lot. According to a brief proposal, the event would inSee PUNKIN Page 78
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Circled areas show where epoxy paint has begun to slough off the “beach ball” water tower.
Beach ball blistered by paint mix defect New coating to be applied this fall at no cost to city By Josh Davis News Editor (May 3, 2019) The bad news is, the three-year old, million-gallon “beach ball” water tower on First Street and St. Louis Avenue needs a new paint job. The good news? The city doesn’t have to pay for it. Finished in late 2016, the $5 million water tower replaced a pair of 50-yearold towers on Worcester Avenue and 15th Street that held a combined
900,000 gallons. What’s more, the new tower, put up by Chicago Bridge and Iron Constructors, came with a Sherwin-Williams paint job to mimic an enormous beach ball hovering brightly over the main entranceway to the resort. Reportedly, the design cost $10,000 more than the standard blue paint job. Tank painting was finished in September 2016 and included an initial coat of Sherwin-Williams Macropoxy 646, or a coat of white paint that covered the whole tank. Specifications for See FOULED Page 76
Dockless bike ban scoots through first stage By Josh Davis News Editor (May 3, 2019) Measures were taken on Tuesday to ban so-called dockless bicycles and standup electric scooter share programs in the resort. The Ocean City Council, during a
work session on Tuesday, voted to move an ordinance to do so to a first reading, the first step in officially passing the ban. Police Capt. Mike Colbert said questions about dockless bicycles were brought up during a March police commission meeting. Dockless bicycles refer
to a service where bicycles are rented on a short-term basis and then returned to a dock, locking the bikes in place. “There’s a lot of them and we’ve all seen issues with them in other parts of the country. Some municipalities like them – others are having really big
growing pains with them, particularly locally in Baltimore and [Washington], D.C.,” Colbert said. He said the commission voted to seek legal advice on the matter “because of the proliferation of these in the genSee CITY Page 81