OCEANCITY, Md. - After over an hour of bidding for individual lots at the Ocean City Brewing Company's public auction on Tuesday, one Pennsylvania man bought everything in an absolute sale.
The court-ordered auction was hosted by Atlantic Auctions after OC Brewing Co. owner Joshua Shores was sentenced to five years in prison for a fraud scheme. Shores made $2.5 million by selling counterfeit sports memorabilia, forcing the company to declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy last year.
General Manager of Atlantic Auctions Jack Levi says he was surprised by the high turnout of 50 bidders at the auction.
"This was some big ticket, big assets and you can obviously see it was a lot of interest in it," Levi said.
Co-owner of Tall Tales Brewery in Parsonsburg Jason Hearn says he attends these auctions hoping to snag a good deal on commercial items.
"You're able to get items typically for less money. Like the brewhouse initially it's like $150,000 is what it would be worth. The brewhouse which is where they brew the beer sold for 30 grand which is a huge savings," Hearn said.
Hearn says he had been eyeing up the barrel racks all morning.
"Initially we had bought some barrel racks and some older barrels that we were going to convert to tables or something like that," Hearn said.
But after a man from Pennsylvania got the last bid of the day, a wholesale of all the lot items, it nullified all of the days bids. Levi says now the man is responsible for any selling of items and transporting the products out of OC Brewing Co.'s building.
Levi says the landlord for the OC Brewing Co. building is looking to fill the space with a completely different business, aside from restaurant space, to take over the lease there in Worcester County.
