ATLANTA — A Florida tax collector wants the Skyview Atlanta Ferris wheel seized and sold. She's suing, claiming the previous owners owe back taxes and the Ferris wheel should not have been moved from Pensacola, Florida, to downtown Atlanta.
"This is a vendetta by a public official who's up for re-election in Pensacola, Florida. Pensacola has always been angry that this wonderful icon left their city and came to Atlanta," said Jason Evans, Skyview Atlanta spokesman.
The 200-foot Ferris wheel is owned by a company in Europe, which leases it to operators in different cities.
The group that ran it in Pensacola dissolved after the wheel moved to Atlanta in 2013.
The 166-page lawsuit, filed this month in Fulton County, claims the current operator is on the hook for a $237,000 delinquent tax debt, including $100,000 in interest and penalties.
Under Florida law, that debt follows the Ferris wheel, no matter who is running it.
"We've never had any tangible property of this value, and I don't know that there's anything like this in the state. This is definitely a record setter," Escambia County Tax Collector Janet Holley told Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant by phone.
Holley told Diamant she wants the wheel seized and sold to repay the debt.
"It's not my money. It belongs to the taxpayers of Escambia County, so no, it's my duty to collect according to the law and that's all I'm trying to do," she said.
Evans says Atlanta partners didn't know about the debt until they got served with the lawsuit and immediately paid $50,000 toward what's owed.
"Our only contention is that they're charging some ridiculous penalties and interest and things like that on the taxes, and we're willing to pay those as soon as the court tells us that that's what we have to pay," said Evans.
The case is set for a jury trial in Fulton County in July.