A shuttered seafood store's rotting fish caused a stench across University City this week. Now it turns out the St. Louis fish story may have a connection to something else that stinks on the regular: Florida politics.
St. Louis County shut down Seafood City in December 2022 for health code violations. Many months later, neighbors began to notice a terrible smell that gradually grew worse and worse. According to Fox 2 News, this week University City officials discovered "tons" of unsold fish left to rot in non-functioning freezers. One estimate said the store’s owners had left 8,000 pounds of food behind. Cleanup could take weeks.
Documents filed last year with the Missouri secretary of state's office show that the president of Seafood City Inc. is Bowen Kou, whose address is listed as East Lansing, Michigan.
And Kou is almost certainly the same Bowen Kou running for state senate as a Republican in Florida. The biography on his campaign website says that Kou owns nine grocery stores, "providing livelihood for more than 500 families." That seems to be referencing the Fresh International Market chain of stores, which began in East Lansing — also the home of Kou's alma mater, Michigan State University.
The precise connection between Fresh International Market and Seafood City is not clear, but a Bowen Kou is listed as Seafood City’s president in business filings and the listed East Lansing address is the site of a Fresh International Market.
Kou's LinkedIn boasts that Fresh International Market "has partnered with some of the best restaurants, bakeries, and retailers in recent years." Perhaps Seafood City was one of those retailers — though "best" may be a bit of a stretch, given that last year it fared poorly on a health department inspection, was ordered closed and reportedly remained open for several months anyway.
We left multiple voicemails and sent multiple emails to Kou’s campaign and will update the story if we hear back. (Editor's note: See the statement we received from Kou months after publication at the bottom of the story.)
Key planks of Kou's campaign include promises he will "end the woke agenda" and "say no to socialism." He also describes himself as pro-life, pro-Second Amendment and interested in getting rid of toll roads in central Florida.
Flordias's District 13, which Kou hopes to represent in the state senate, is west of Orlando and not too far from the Villages, probably Florida’s most famous retirement community.
A perusal of Kou’s website doesn't address his stance on businesses that leave tons of fish to rot in a shuttered seafood shop.
Update: In April 2024, seven months after we published this story, we received an email from Bowen Kou. In it, he shared what he described as his side of the story. It reads:"This issue should have never happened if the landlord did their job and that the building I leased was not up to code and put you and the city in a terrible spot.
"We have had the roof issue since September 2019. Based on the lease. I sent an email with HEI engineers' and structural reports to the landlord and requested the landlord to fix the roof via email. The landlord never took any action to address the issue besides just putting up a temporary fix. On December 15th, 2022, the health department had to close the store due to violations related to the ongoing water intrusion.
"After the store closed, the city did not allow anyone to enter the store. Eventually, we had to file a lawsuit against the landlord. As of today, we have a provable total damage of $7.1M damage looking to recover from the Landlord."
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