LOS ANGELES — Jeff Crouthamel can never forget the time his father was asked to deliver a wriggling cow to a ship docked in San Pedro Harbor. The cow twisted out of the sling being used to hoist it aboard and had to be fished out of the water.
Or the shipment of 100 live chickens intended to feed a delayed ship's crew that instead spent five days around the Crouthamel household, doing what chickens do. Crouthamel's job was to help put up chicken wire around the family home and collect newly laid eggs from the hens, who weren't happy about the arrangement.
Those are pleasant memories compared with the problems currently facing Harbor Ship Supply, a small San Pedro business started by Crouthamel's grandfather to provide goods for vessels arriving at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The 90-year-old company now holds a dominant position in its line of work, controlling the California coast from San Diego to Oakland, with inroads as far north as Anacortes, Wash.
