WRAL-TV reports:
The Chicago businessman who agreed last year to take over the troubled Roanoke Rapids Theatre has missed two lease payments, as the music theater continues to be a drag on the city’s finances.
Lafayette Gatling, a North Carolina native who has built a business empire on shopping centers, an Illinois casino and a chain of funeral homes, a year ago agreed to a $12.5 million lease-purchase plan for the Roanoke Rapids Theatre. Gatling hasn’t made his February and March lease payments, which total about $196,000, city officials said Monday.
Read Carolina Journal‘s coverage of the theater fiasco here.
