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"Honey, I Bought Us a Ferris Wheel!"
Santa Monica's Pacific Park ferris wheel has a new owner, thanks to an eBay auction that ended at noon yesterday.
The winner is Grant Humphreys of Oklahoma City, who came in as the highest bidder with $132,400 for the solar powered heavyweight carnival ride that arrived on the Pier in 1996. According to the Daily Breeze, Humphreys "beat out five others in a bidding war that went back and forth through 35 offers."
The wheel was auctioned off to make way for a new one that is expected to be put in place by the end of May. Humphreys' new toy will spin its last riders above the pier in Santa Monica on May 4th, and then it will be taken apart and shipped to Oklahoma, where it might end up in one real estate businessman Humphreys' "walkable communities" that his company is behind. Of course, first he plans on enjoying the ride with his family.
Half of the auction money is going to Special Olympics Southern California, and for each rider on the wheel's last day $1 will go to the LA branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Photo by nopantsboy via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
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