Wednesday, May 2 - Trimper's Rides' Future Looks Bleak In Ocean City

OCEAN CITY - In a letter to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Trimper's Rides Vice President Doug Trimper tells the state's top-ranking official the amusement park is 'being forced out of business by taxation.'

According to Trimper, whose family owns and operates the famous amusement park at the south-end of the Boardwalk, the property tax assessment on the land has increased from $29 million in 2004 to $77 million in 2007. The property tax has increased by more than $500,000 as a result, Trimper said.

In his letter to O'Malley dated April 15 and obtained by this newspaper yesterday, Trimper is clear - the amusement park will not continue to live on in its current form due to the rising cost of doing business, namely the intense tax burden it has been unable to overcome.

'I am asking nothing from you. I simply want you to be aware that unless government gains some foresight into what is important to the people of Maryland, businesses like ours will continue to disappear,' Trimper wrote. 'Our overall taxation has reached a level where the income from the hundreds of thousands of annual visitors simply cannot keep the company out of the red. Our stockholders will not allow that trend to continue.'

Although a timetable has not been announced, Trimper has indicated the park will be ceasing to exist as it is this summer in the near future. It may not be closed entirely, as Trimper said his father, Granville, grandson of the original founders and a former mayor of Ocean City, wants to continue to operate a portion of the park.

To read the full story, check out The Dispatch and its website on Friday