Piranha3D-KellyBrook-RileySteele

The LA Times has a story today claiming people in Lake Havasu are worried that Piranha 3D will hurt their tourism business.  You know, because Piranha 3D was shot in Lake Havasu, and people who are informed enough to know that will not be able to tell the difference between real life and make believe.  Yeah… I don’t know, dude.

At least that was the sentiment conveyed by the city’s publicist, Jeff Blumenfeld, who called us somewhat frantically Wednesday morning to express concern over the movie. “We’re gritting our teeth — we’re just hoping that the reaction is a good one for the city,” he said.

Haha, gritting your teeth, hilarious.  Time out, a guy named “Blumenfeld” lives in Lake Havasu?  That might be the most far-fetched part of the story.

While it might seem preposterous that tourists could truly believe that there are piranhas swimming around Lake Havasu, some local hotel owners say they’ve already encountered a few nervous patrons.

“One woman was bringing up to me that the movie was coming out, and she asked – as serious as serious can be – ‘Oh, but are there still piranha in the lake?’ ” recalled Cal Sheehy, general manager of the London Bridge Resort, which is right on Lake Havasu. “At first, I kind of took it as a joke. But then I let her know that that’s the computer-generated part of the movie. And she was very relieved, saying, ‘Oh, I’m so glad to hear that.’ ”

Vern Porter, of the Nautical Beachfront Resort, has been joking with his guests that he “hopes they took all of the piranhas out when they finished the movie,” but can’t imagine anyone would take the threat of killer fish seriously.

Haha, “I hope they took all the piranhas out!”  F*ckin’ classic Vern!

Still, city spokesman Blumenfeld thinks that anyone who sees “Piranha 3D” could easily make a correlation between the lake in the movie and Havasu.

“It’s Arizona’s worst-kept secret,” he said. “If you Google Lake Havasu, ‘piranha’ shows up. And people can easily recognize Havasu in the movie — they’ve got some of our big spots, like the Bridgewater Channel. When you look at the scenery, it’s pretty distinctive — that kind of desert, water, mountains.”

So let me get this straight: Lake Havasu’s tourism board thought this would be a cute opportunity for a publicity campaign, and the LA Times was just like “F*ck it, it’s LA, it’s not like we have any real news to report anyway.”?

For the record, no, Lake Havasu does not have piranha. However, the speed-freaks with meth mouth can give you an even nastier bite.