VALLEJO, Calif. (Reuters)
Joey
Ramirez, 14, has
belched his way into the bad books at Six Flags Marine World.
Ramirez was visiting the amusement park when he let loose what
he calls a burp. Others called it an illegal,
"intentional belch", and security was summoned. At the end of
the day, Ramirez was stripped of his $47.50 season
pass.
"The young man's pass has been revoked because he was
belching extremely loud, intentionally in the faces of
guests, including the daughter of a guest in the Voodoo ride
line," Marine
World spokesman Jeff Jouett told Friday's
Vallejo Times Herald newspaper.
Ramirez says he has been maligned, and his mother agrees.
"He has a lot of indigestion. I do, my mother does, and on a
bad day, we burp," Kimberly Ramirez told the
newspaper. "I won't dispute that he was burping because he was
on his own and he probably let one go, but he's 14."
But officials at the amusement park in Vallejo, 20 miles (32
km) northeast of San Francisco, cite a string of "incident
reports" which
paint Ramirez as a serial belcher, burping on
patrons in line, burping on the daughter of the man who
asked him to stop, and then burping on other patrons while on
the ride itself.
"It was not indigestion. It was swallowing a lot of air and
making as much noise as possible," Jouett said.
"This is intentionally loud belching, intentionally directed
at other guests. This is not a pinched cheeks, cover your
mouth (burp), this is an open mouth blast toward other guests."