Domino’s Pizza owner Ike Coronis said he received an unusual call during the last week of June.
A man called to inform him his business may be boycotted if he chose to be involved in LagoPalooza Friday and Saturday at Cody Park. The event, organized and sponsored by the Lago Vista and Jonestown Area Chamber of Commerce, is set to both cater to visitors and local residents during the AquaPalooza Signature Event this week on Lake Travis. Event organizers are expecting to host more than 4,000 boats on the lake, with North Shore events like LagoPalooza and Night on the North Shore coinciding with the huge event.
Coronis said the man explained that many members of the Lago Vista Property Owners’ Association were unhappy about its board of directors opening up Cody Park to the public. Because of this, the man said, members were organizing a boycott of businesses involved in the event. Though the man told Coronis the decision was nothing personal, Coronis said he found it difficult not to take it any other way.
“You’re going to affect my livelihood and my family because of a decision the POA made?” Coronis asked the man.
Domino’s Pizza was not the only business that received the phone call. True Grits Restaurant & Grill, Tug’s BBQ and Dee Dee’s Tacos & More all received calls dissuading them to participate in LagoPalooza.
Anita Klingler, co-owner of True Grits, said she chose not get involved in the dispute and removed the restaurant as a vendor.
“I’m new to town; I can’t afford someone in Lago Vista to say they’ll never eat at True Grits because we sold burgers at Cody Park,” she said.
Coronis said he felt differently.
“It’s not the easiest thing to maintain a business in this town,” he said, “and to try to attack the local economy … it’s not right.”
Coronis said his caller identification pulled up the name John Haar of Lago Vista as the man who called him. Haar later denied ever calling Domino’s Pizza or any other businesses, and could not explain why the caller ID showed him as the caller.
But Haar said he did sign an online petition circulated by e-mail. Joe Marek, through a letter to the LOG, promoted the petition and urged fellow LVPOA members to sign it. Marek later said the petition was a means to show support for better communication between the LVPOA Board of Directors and its membership.
“I’m not necessarily against the event,” he said of LagoPalooza, “it’s just how they (LVPOA) handled the event.”
Marek added the petition in no way suggested retaliating against the chamber of commerce or local businesses for requesting the park for LagoPalooza.
Three other LVPOA members, Brad Waite, Tracy Alexander and Terri Hunt, circulated e-mails throughout the membership looking for support toward protesting the event. In their e-mail, the members suggest “… those so inclined can boycott any organizers and vendors who, after being informed they are infringing on our preexisting rights to privacy, persist in taking our parks public regardless.”
Waite explained the language in the e-mail as a “boycott, buycott,” meaning the membership would also support those businesses that would not be vendors.
“When you’re a good neighbor, you respect the rights of your neighbor, and your neighbor respects your rights,” he said. “In this case, what I see instead is there is a commercial interest taking what we own and a community interest of what we have.”
Waite said more than 200 people signed the petition, which he said is an indicator of the membership’s feelings toward LagoPalooza. “We have a huge objection to this,” he said.
LVPOA Board President replied to Waite’s open e-mail, putting partial blame on the lack of public parks on the North Shore.
“This has led to the current situation where the LVPOA is carrying the ‘community burden’ of holding any type of public event on private parks owned by our membership,” Freeman wrote in his e-mail. “Unless the (city) does something in the near future to resolve of not having any type of public facilities (other than golf courses), the issue of holding public events on LVPOA properties is only going to increase …”
The LVPOA board is set to discuss commercial use of its properties and 2011 event requests at its regular meeting 7 p.m. tonight at the LVPOA Activity Center.
Despite the threat of a boycott, both Coronis and Klingler said they did not feel any fluctuation of business after receiving the phone call.
“Whatever they were trying to do, it didn’t come into fruition,” Coronis said.
Both business owners said they understand the reasoning behind some property owners being against the event. But directing their rancor toward their business is wrong.
“It’s aggravating, because the vendors didn’t do anything to cause that problem,” Klingler said. “People are coming anyway. You can either try to make it a good event and try to give Lago Vista a good showing, or you can try to keep them out and make them mad.”