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Lifeboats among discarded items at blighted lot that residents refer to as 'trifling and trashy'

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BATON ROUGE- Residents in Baton Rouge are urging the city to do something after discarded lifeboats from an ocean vessel ended up in two empty lots in Baton Rouge that are now being used as a dumpsite.

The area in question is bordered between North Boulevard and Government Street not far from the Electric Depot. A total of six lifeboats were dropped off a few years ago. Satellite imagery from space shows the lifeboats first arrived in 2020 sometime.

Some of the boats bear the name "Ocean Voyager." Maritime records show a vessel bearing that name carries passengers.

"It's trifling and trashy to be sitting up on the road like that on a lot like it is," Jacqueline Arthur said.

Arthur said she's been looking at the boats for years, wondering why the city allowed them to just sit there like that.

"When I saw it, I said that ain't nothing but a bunch of junk that they left on the side of the road," Arthur said. "I thought they were going to use it for something and just saw it sitting up there."

Arthur said whoever put them there had to put thought into it. The boats are too big to move by yourself and would require several people or machinery to move.

"It needs to be moved," Arthur said. "That's what needs to be. It looks bad. Enough already that people are sleeping homeless and they have this stuff out here too."

Property tax records show the area where the boats were left belongs to Sixteenth Street, LLC. WBRZ contacted a number we found for the property owner, but did not hear back.

The city says the property is zoned as commercial and industrial. Currently, they are looking into what can be done to secure the boats as some of the city's homeless population are now sleeping in them.

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