From AmusementBusiness:
Vancouver billionaire Jim Pattison has shelved a potential $100-million investment in a Niagara Falls entertainment site until he can assess the impact of new U.S. rules requiring all cross-border travelers to carry passports starting in January 2008, the Toronto Globe & Mail reports.
The threat to U.S. travelers’ ability to move back and forth across the border is “absolutely the No. 1 important issue we have to deal with in the country today,” Pattison said in Niagara Falls, Ontario, at the opening of his Great Wolf Lodge, a $130-million hotel and waterpark complex.
That is why, he said, Jim Pattison Group has not given a green light to a proposed aquarium that would form part of a cluster of venues operated by the group’s Ripley Entertainment division.
“We’re going to hold up the aquarium decision for the moment until we know a little bit more about this passport issue,” Pattison said.