KAILUA-KONA — Tours are resuming at the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation location despite a court-appointed trustee shutting down operations there earlier this week, said the former owner and general manager.
“The founding family is reopening tours,” Trent Bateman said in a phone call Friday morning.
Mountain Thunder and its holding company, Naturescape Holding Group Intl Inc., were pushed into bankruptcy by creditors at the end of last year. Creditors who filed the petitions included Kona residents who alleged nonpayment for coffee cherry and a Malibu-based lender with whom the company was already involved in a state foreclosure case.
On Tuesday, trustee Elizabeth Kane, who had been appointed by a federal judge to take over operations of the business, made the decision to shut down operations.
She previously told West Hawaii Today that she made the decision to end operations after reviewing the coffee company’s financial reports. She also said that she plans to sell the company as a going concern or all of its assets.
Bateman has disputed the idea that the company wasn’t sustainable, alleging that there was money not being invoiced or collected, making financial reports appear as though the company was making far less than it actually was.
On Friday, Bateman said tours are running at the farm’s location on Hao Street and the gift shop “is alive and well.”
Tours will also reopen soon in the Kainaliu location, he added.
For more information, people can send an email to trentmountainthunder@gmail.com.
Kane declined to respond citing the ongoing legal dispute.
Legal battles regarding the case that pushed the business into bankruptcy are also continuing.
On Dec. 29, a little more than a week after Kane’s appointment, an attorney for Naturescape filed a notice of appeal in the Naturescape bankruptcy case. That same day that attorney filed a second notice of appeal on behalf of Lisa Bateman and Brooke Decker.
Both filings appeal the judge’s “order for relief,” which declared the company in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The appellants argue that the court shouldn’t have entered the order of relief “because the record demonstrates that the underlying petition was not supported by at least three creditors whose claims were not subject to bona fide dispute,” court documents state.
In January, the appeals moved to U.S. District Court. On Jan. 12, Chief Judge J. Michael Seabright issued an order saying that the court will assess the case status on April 17.
Bateman on Friday declined to give specifics about their legal strategy for the appeal at this time.
