The mouth-watering aroma of fried seafood wafts along the docks of Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant where shrimp boats unload their bounty and restaurants reel in tourists.
This is where generations of shrimpers have made a living. Now shrimpers accuse more than two dozen Lowcountry restaurants of not only selling imported shrimp, but falsely advertising otherwise, many along the creek.
“We are witnessing an issue of misrepresentation, of outsourcing and of a disregard for people who have fed our community for generations,” says Bryan Jones, a local shrimper and Vice President of the South Carolina Shrimpers Association.
The association filed an amended federal lawsuit in Charleston Wednesday, naming 25 restaurants they allege are deceiving consumers by advertising wild, locally caught shrimp on their menus when in fact it's not.
They say testing by a company called SeaD Consulting recently found restaurants serving shrimp from the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic, indicating it is most likely imported.
The South Carolina Shrimpers Association says such deception is not only unfair to consumers, but to restaurants that are in fact selling local shrimp, and of course to shrimpers themselves.
“We’ve tied up our boats in the last couple of years because people are buying imports instead of buying ours,” says Rocky Magwood, a fourth-generation shrimper and President of the South Carolina Shrimpers Association.
“People think they’re eating our shrimp and supporting us, but we’re having to stop working.”
Attorney Gedney Howe IV says he will begin serving the restaurants named in the coming days. The lawsuit seeks monetary and injunctive relief.
“My clients have been harmed by these practices in the past and unless something is done, they will continue to be harmed by it,” says Howe.
Howe says once notified; the restaurants will have 30 days to respond.
South Carolina Public Radio has obtained a list of restaurants named in the lawsuit but is not publishing until they've had a chance to respond.
