“LOCAL CONCERN OVER FATE OF TUNA INDUSTRY GROWS – Concern over the fate of San Diego’s world-famed tuna fishing industry mounted yesterday with the disclosure that approximately 50% of the catches of the local clipper fleet are being processed in SAN PEDRO canneries. This followed the news Wednesday that the VAN CAMP SEA FOOD CO. has no plans for reopening its San Diego plant in the immediate future. Van Camp officials, contacted by telephone yesterday at the Terminal Island plant, said reports current here that the San Diego plant eventually will be sold was news to them. The Union also contacted by telephone officials of the FRENCH SARDINE CO. at Terminal Island concerning reports that the company’s local affiliate, HIGH SEAS PACKING CO. at Roseville, would sharply curtail operations following completion of the company’s new Terminal Island cannery this summer. ‘CALL US IN JULY’, was the reply. Waterfront observers pointed out that with all the tuna clippers of the Van Camp fleet scheduled to unload their catches at San Pedro, and most of the clippers for High Seas Tuna Packing Co. and French Sardine Co. at Terminal Island doing the same, nearly 50% of the total catch is going north.
SEASONAL REOPENING
The Chamber of Commerce, meantime, reported Van Camp foresees a possibility of reopening its San Diego cannery during the summer albacore season. Mr. Stanley Grove, Chamber Manager, talked with Mr. Gilbert C. Van Camp, Director of the packing company, by phone at Terminal Island. Grove quoted Van Camp as saying, ‘We have no intention of closing our San Diego location permanently. When the summer albacore season arrives, there might be enough fish coming in to make the operation of both plants a paying proposition.
ONE PLANT SUFFICIENT
‘It is just common sense to keep one cannery going at somewhere near normal capacity instead of having them both in operation on a stand-by basis, and our northern plant can pack all the fish we’re getting at this time.’ The industry, still reeling from foreign tuna imports and beset by a series of misfortunes, (cont. next pg.) received another shocker yesterday by apparently ‘authentic reports’ that negotiations are under way which may result in the closing of a third San Diego cannery. Idle now are the plants of VAN CAMP and WESTGATE-SUN HARBOR.
‘If the present trend continues, within the space of a few years the San Diego tuna fleet will be operating out of San Pedro,’ Mr. FRANK M. PERRY, former President of the AMERICAN TUNABOAT ASSOCIATION (A.T.A.) and owner of several clippers, declared yesterday. ‘If any cannery here is to be placed on the market then every effort should be made to purchase it to handle the catches of the local tunaboats,’ Perry said. Mr. Perry stressed that many families have spent their entire careers in developing the San Diego fishing industry, that the sons of many pioneer skippers are following in the footsteps of their fathers, and that millions of dollars are involved in ship and shore operations of the fishing fleet. ‘To permit this valuable industry to fold up and move to San Pedro is unthinkable.’, said Perry.”
(*Source: San Diego Union & DAILY BEE newspaper – Friday, April 11, 1952 – Pg. 1 & 2)