The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce called a special-called meeting Tuesday morning to respond to recent political attacks.
The board addressed the status of its defamation lawsuit against the anonymous web blogger known as Mr. Elmer Fudd.
A lawyer for the Chamber, David Slough, said he was postponing any further action on the case until after the Myrtle Beach municipal elections "out of respect for the electoral process."
Slough said he did not yet know Elmer Fudd's identity. However, he noted evidence that he said shows Mark McBride, candidate for Myrtle Beach mayor and president of the Grand Strand Chamber of Commerce, had inside knowledge of a subject that "Elmer Fudd" discussed in a September web posting.
Slough said the only ones with such knowledge would be McBride, Lively Distributors' executives and its attorneys who are suing the Chamber over allegations of violations of the Fair Trade Act.
Lively Distributors produces advertising brochures and coupon books that are placed in hotels and restaurants. When the Chamber began doing the same thing -- but for free -- Lively sued and claimed it would lose business.
The lawsuit has been going on for months, but recently Lively sent subpoenas to businesses trying to find out what information they had about the brochures, Slough said.
The deadline to respond to the subpoenas was on September 7, and two days later, Slough said Elmer Fudd posted on an online news web site and asked why the media wasn't covering the story. Fudd, Slough said, provided details about the subpoenas, the deadlines and the case.
In response, the Chamber's attorney sent an interrogatory -- a written request -- to Lively requesting any information they had on the identity of Elmer Fudd.
Slough said Lively gave this response:
"Plaintiffs respond that Mark McBride asked Gary Lively about the status of this lawsuit and Mr. Lively showed Mr. McBride copies of one or more subpoenas issued by plaintiff's counsel. Mr. Lively did not convey to Mr. McBride any of the erroneous information posted in the blogs, and Mr. McBride did not admit to being the blogger."
Despite quoting what Lively has told them about McBride, Slough said the chamber was not trying to draw conclusions about Fudd's identity.
When asked for comment, McBride, said, "it's interesting the Chamber would work my name into their special-called meeting."
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