Chamber pot needs stirring

Editors note: They say a few bad apples can spoil the whole barrel, or pot, and a tight chamber cabal of fifteen or twenty people is tarnishing the chamber’s reputation by the use of its bullying and intimidation tactics, (some witnessed on this very blog). The members, by allowing the same individuals who have presided over so many of the economic disasters of the last few decades to run roughshod over the business community has cost the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce credibility and likened it with a Hollywood, stylized version of organized crime syndicate rather than an organization of local businesses. The letter below to Brooke Walton, president of the cabal and star of the ruby slipper video is penned by Wim de Vriend, owner of the Blue Heron Bistro. De Vriend is a long time chamber member and he details in this letter, which is being copied to all members, the strong arm tactics that dissenters like himself have been subjected to and more business owners who have avoided speaking their minds for fear of damaging their business should consider taking similar action.

Perhaps it is time to form an alternate “greener” chamber of commerce in Coos Bay and North Bend, one with a more modern and less 19th century industrialized view of local business.

Brooke Walton, President
Coos Bay Chamber of Commerce

Subject: Tortious offenses at the Chamber’s visitor center

Dear Ms. Walton:

On Saturday April 13, 2013, between noon and 1 PM, a lady and her teenage son entered my place of business, the Blue Heron Bistro in downtown Coos Bay. They each ordered one of the Blue Heron’s German specialties. As it happened, I served them myself; and after they finished their meals the lady expressed her great appreciation for the food. She then asked me if I was the owner. With my usual modesty, I confirmed it. She then told me that she was visiting Coos Bay from Reno, Nevada, and that the previous Monday, April 8, she had visited the Coos Bay tourist information center. On that occasion the center was staffed by an elderly man and an elderly woman. She asked the woman about the Blue Heron Bistro. And since the woman’s response was: “Oh, I wouldn’t eat there,” she didn’t.

Subsequently, while visiting downtown Coos Bay again on Saturday the 13th, she visited an antique store located in the same block of Broadway as my restaurant. When she asked the lady managing the store about the Blue Heron Bistro, she was effusive in her praises. This caused the lady from Reno to visit the Blue Heron for the first time, and as I mentioned, she was very happy.

This is the second time in less than two years when a guest at my restaurant has made me aware of a staffer at the visitor information center brazenly denigrating my business. The first incident that was brought to my attention occurred on September 1, 2011. On that occasion an elderly woman volunteer at the center told a couple of visitors that the Blue Heron was a terrible place to eat, with awful food and a horrible owner. It so happened that this couple (by the name of Gunderson) had visited the Blue Heron the previous day, August 31, so they knew better, and in the evening of September 1 they returned to have dinner and to inform my waitress of their experience at the visitor center. I complained to a couple of Chamber board members, who promised action. Subsequently Chamber manager Timm Slater claimed he was unable to find the perpetrator, and that’s where the matter was left, much to my dissatisfaction, because it shouldn’t have been that difficult. My informant in the most recent case is Margaret (Margo) Hawkins. Her cell phone is ___________, and her email address _______________

These two known incidents suffice to reveal the existence of an ongoing campaign of defamation at the visitor center, because plain logic dictates that the vast majority of such incidents never came to my attention. In the 2011 incident the potential customers had already dined at the Blue Heron, so they knew better than to believe the trash put out by the center’s volunteer(s). In the most recent case the potential customer initially did not come in but then got a second opinion that changed her mind. Given all that, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that the great majority of travelers who were treated to the visitor information center’s slanderous “advice” would never have darkened my door in the first place.

It‘s possible that, to enlighten the officers of the Chamber, I need to provide some background. First, I should explain that the Blue Heron is located at the northwest corner of North Broadway and Commercial Avenue, in downtown Coos Bay. At that location Broadway carries the southbound lanes of U.S. Highway 101, the busy coastal highway which brings many tourists and other travelers. One block south of the restaurant is the visitor information center, which is managed by the Coos Bay Chamber of Commerce, in a building owned by the City of Coos Bay. My business has been at the Broadway and Commercial location for 34 years, and for most or all of those years has been a dues-paying member of the Chamber of Commerce. Still-available records from 1998 on show that I have paid annual dues totaling $2,918.00, but I’m sure prior records, if I still had them, would show that I have paid dues even longer. For dues-paying members, the benefits of membership are listed on the Chamber’s website, but one cannot escape the impression that the gossips at the visitor information center are unfamiliar with it. The website promises members “Referrals to your business – The Chamber is often the first place people call for information and Chamber members are referred first and foremost.” The Chamber’s site boasts that the Coos Bay Chamber of Commerce’s visitor information center greets over 36,000 visitors and responds to 22,500 requests for information a year, and also claims “to advocate on behalf of the business community,” and to work for “more customers” for local businesses. In fact, the Chamber’s “Mission Statement” summarizes these activities as: “Our Business is helping your Business.” Again quoting from the Chamber’s website (pages 7/8), the Chamber claims to “support tourism based businesses. . . . “A principle [sic] element of that effort will be the . . . support of the . . . marketing and visitor outreach services. Additionally, we work the front line of visitor contact by managing the Coos Bay visitor information center.” In a final act of auto-deification, the Chamber boasts: “When people call us looking for a particular product or service, we refer Chamber members first and foremost! Another FREE, members only service!”

Besides deflating this set of soaringly solemn covenants, the Chamber’s repeated bad-mouthing of my business has violated the relationship of trust not just with me, but with its entire membership. The least that any dues-paying Chamber member may expect is that the Chamber will do him of her no harm. But I wonder how many other businesses besides mine have been denigrated, and their customer flow reduced, by what appears to be an irresponsibly managed organization fueled by fraud and venom, although sloth, indifference and ignorance may be part of the mix. The latter may apply if the Chamber doesn’t even know that there is no factual justification for the denigration it has lavished on my livelihood. The Blue Heron happens to be one of very few Coos Bay restaurants listed in the most highly-regarded American restaurant guide, the AAA travel guide. A restaurant cannot buy its way into this venerable book, which describes the Blue Heron as follows: “This is the closest thing to a bier stube you will find on the Oregon coast, with 5 German beers on tap to wash down schnitzel, brat, warm French potato salad or seafood stew. Patrons will find a great selection of German and seafood entrées. All portions are large and a great value, and the staff is warm and fun.” Other reputable sources of approval have included travel books such as Frommer’s and The Best Places, and also The Oregonian, which has described the Blue Heron as “Coos Bay’s best restaurant.”

But even if the Blue Heron were Coos Bay’s worst restaurant, the Chamber’s job does NOT include pushing negative business reviews onto the public. The Chamber is neither the Better Business Bureau, nor tripadvisor.com, nor the neighborhood gossip monger. If the visitor center’s representatives have nothing positive to communicate, they should either be banned from the place or told to confine themselves to the facts about every member business as listed in the Chamber’s official information base – and this policy should be enforced by competent management. It appears not only that the Chamber, for quite some time, has violated its contractual obligations with its membership including the Blue Heron, but it also has engaged in defamation and business interference, all of which are actionable civil torts. I am also advised by counsel that I may have a case for federal First Amendment violations, since the Chamber’s visitor information center operates inside a City building, and it is plain that many of the Chamber’s leading lights do not appreciate my private activities as the best-informed critic of their foolish “economic development” manias that have been the ruination of this beautiful part of the Oregon coast.

In view of what clearly, instead of a valuable service by the Chamber, amounts to an outrageous disservice, I demand to be given the following by the Chamber of Commerce, all of it by May 15:

1. a refund of my Chamber dues paid over the past twenty years;
2. presumed economic damages suffered, in the amount of $100,000;
3. an official, written communication acknowledging the facts stated herein;
4. a written apology;
5. a written description of procedures that will be put in place to avoid a recurrence.
6. a written description of personnel actions taken. Among these I expect the termination of the “volunteer” or “volunteers” who have been spreading slander, but also the dismissal of Timm Slater, the Chamber manager, for either malicious, willful misconduct or his inability to properly manage the visitor information center’s spokespersons.

I am contacting the entire Chamber membership about this matter, and I am prepared to sue in appropriate courts for damages far exceeding the above demands – actual and punitive, court costs, and legal fees. These include damages for breach of contract, defamation, slander and business interference in state court as well as a First Amendment civil rights suit in federal court.

For your sake and the Chamber’s, I hope you will give this matter your most serious attention.

Less Than Cordially,

Wim de Vriend
BLUE HERON BISTRO, Inc.