What to do with Tony, the eight-year-old Siberian-Bengal tiger born and raised at the Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete, will be the main subject of tonight’s Iberville Parish Council meeting. Tiger Truck Stop owner Michael Sandlin is trying to obtain a permit from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in order to legally keep Tony; first, he needs the Iberville Parish council to grandfather him into parish law prohibiting individuals from owning or displaying wild animals. Lobbying against him are animal rights activists who want Tony out of the truck stop and into an animal sanctuary where he can be more humanely cared for. (See The Independnet’s Feb.4 cover story, “Cat Fight” )
The issue has spawned dueling Web sites and petitions (savetony.com and freetony.com ) with both sides urging their supporters to tonight's council meeting. The national media is also starting to sink its teeth into the story. Yesterday, Fox News posted an over the top article titled “Claws Come Out in Fight Over Tony the Truck-Stop Tiger” with the roaring lede, “A gr-r-r-reat cat fight is brewing at a truck stop in Louisiana.”
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
Subscribe to this comment's feed