MiNTyOnE
Disco's
Bitch
Registered: Mar
2002
Location: My Doctor said "MYLANTA!"
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quote:
Rumors rampant in Baton Rouge area
By CHAD CALDER
Advocate business writer
Baton Rouge is talking.
Rumors are flying.
The problem is, a lot of them
aren’t true, for instance, ones circulating today.
The Tanger Outlet Mall in Gonzales has not been
looted.
The shops at Tanger Outlet Mall remain open
for business, manager Bridgette Tullos said today.
“We have not had a single report of shoplifting. We
have not had a single report of looting,” Tullos said. “Our
mall is safe and secure.”
The mall has changed its
closing time from 9 p.m. to 6 p.m. because a number of
employees are without electricity, Tullos said, and the
stores are trying to accommodate them.
Rebecca
Rainer, spokeswoman for the Mall at Cortana, another subject
of closure rumors, said some stores in the Mall at Cortana
are closed because they don’t have phone service and can’t
run credit cards. But the mall is open for business, she
said.
Workers in the Governmental Building in
downtown Baton Rouge began leaving their offices today,
after employees became concerned about walking to their cars
at the Governmental Building. They had heard rumors that
cars were being vandalized.
On one of the basement
parking levels, where many employees park, there was a
report of a suspicious man walking around the cars. A search
of the parking area found no one.
A police officer
on the scene at the Baton Rouge River Center, where
thousands of exhausted refugees are staying, said shortly
after 10:30 a.m. that police were working their way through
the center to check for weapons and searching the parking
lot.
They had heard a rumor that someone had broken
into a pawn shop and stolen weapons.
Davis Rhorer,
executive director of the Downtown Development District,
said his office and phone lines have been busy talking to
people who’ve heard all sorts of stories.
He said
people hear things on the radio and on the street, “and it
just grows.”
Rhorer said rumors began circulating
last night that the Chevron near the Centroplex had been
looted, but there was a minor scuffle, he said, which had
been quickly taken care of by police.
After hearing
the state had closed all their downtown offices, Rhorer
called the state Office of Facility Planning, which told him
they had simply begun locking their doors.
Tanger’s
Tullos said all kinds of rumors are flying around. This
morning she said she received an e-mail asking about a
non-existent carjacking.
The only unusual activity
in the mall parking lot, Tullos said, is its use as a
staging area for the state Department of Wildlife and
Fisheries, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Guard.
A story began circulating Wednesday that a gang of
bikers left New Orleans, en route to Baton Rouge to loot the
city with guns stolen from Wal-Mart.
IP:
65.196.168.166 |
09-01-2005
01:31 PM
