Uncorked, a local wine shop on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach was caught in the crossfire of a political battle last week after agreeing to host a small mixer for E&B Natural Resources at their shop.
On Monday, June 17 the Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce sent out an email blast to chamber members inviting them to attend an “E&B Natural Resources Reception at Uncorked.” The event was billed as an event to “Unveil Phase 1 of E&B’s independent economic report brochure as well as reminding business owners to have a voice and take part in the upcoming ‘Hermosa 2020 and Beyond: A Community Dialogue’ hosted by the City of Hermosa Beach.”
Once local activists associated with the “Stop Oil Drilling in Hermosa Beach” group caught wind of the event, an all-call was issued on Facebook for those interested to call Uncorked and “Let them know how you feel about their association with E&B.” Soon, the local wine shop was receiving phone calls from people threatening to boycott their store.
“This is hilarious! Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce Promoting an E&B Oil Event at Uncorked on Wednesday,” local activist Jeff Cohn said on the Stop Oil Facebook page. “The ‘friendly’ reception wants to remind you that anyone staging a ‘demonstration’ will be removed form the premises.”
“When all of us got wind of it, I called and said I’m not going to shop at your store anymore if you’re supporting E&B,” said Arcadia Berjonneau, a Hermosa Beach resident. “They were shocked. I was just one of many people that made that call.”
According to Uncorked co-owner Gerry Athas-Vazquez, the shopowners were told the event would be a little networking event, without any presentations, at which E&B representatives would be able to meet members of the community and be available to answer any questions about the potential project.
“Some members of the Facebook page ‘Stop Drilling in Hermosa Beach’ actually did call the shop and said they were not in favor of us hosting an event,” said Athas-Vazquez. “Let me be clear, when somebody books an event at the shop, they are hosting the event, not us. That’s unfortunately what some people did not realize. There is a difference.”
“Called them. Will never shop there again,” Berjonneau wrote on Facebook.
“I’ve spent a fair amount of $ at uncorked. Good thing there are other wine shops that will get my business in the future,” David Adler wrote on the same thread.
According to Athas-Vazquez, Uncorked employees told the callers that they were not promoting E&B.
“We are just a business doing business,” said Athas-Vazquez. “Somebody called to book an event. We’re a neutral party here. It’s not in any way an endorsement or alliance… we’re not advocating anything one way or the other.”
She added that once word circulated about the evening and more people RSVP’d, the event had to be moved to a different venue because of space constraints
“That’s simply what it is, capacity issues,” Athas-Vazques said.
“I am NOT suggesting a boycott of Uncorked!! I think this was just an innocent business arrangement, hosting a small gathering. I certainly don’t blame them for taking the gig – it’s gotta be tough to survive up there. But this is an example of how businesses could get caught up in the crossfire,” Allan Mason wrote on Facebook on June 17.
“When we posted the event to the website and people said they’re not going to shop there, that to me was the reason they moved it,” said Cohn.
Opponents of E&B also suggested that the Chamber of Commerce’s involvement in the mixer was inappropriate.
“The Chamber of Commerce overstepped their bounds,” Cohn said. “The chamber is in way over their heads and I don’t trust them.”
Matt Bennett, the Chamber of Commerce communications and special events manager, said that the mixer wasn’t the chamber’s event.
“They [E&B] asked if we could send the invitation out to chamber members, like we would do for any other member,” Bennett said. “Some people thought it was our event and we tried to clear that up as much as we could ahead of time.”
E&B spokesperson Tiffany Rau said that the event’s original estimate of 25 guests was doubled by Wednesday morning.
“Uncorked sent us an email saying they couldn’t accommodate that, so we moved it to Abigaile’s,” Rau said, adding that she estimated that about 80 people attended. “It was primarily just mingling. We had seven E&B people there including the president. They didn’t do any formal presentations, just handouts when you walked in.”
Jed Sanford, the co-owner of Abigaile and Ocean Bar, said he didn’t know about the controversy until the day after the event and that to his knowledge, nobody called and threatened to boycott his restaurant.
“We hold thousands of events,” Sanford said. “Somebody called and said they needed to do an event and asked if we had space available. We did, so they moved it.”
An event attendee named Joanne, who asked not to have her last name published, said that the evening went well.
“I was schmoozing with so many people,” she said. “I never even met the E&B people. I didn’t get anything out if it and there wasn’t really any formal interaction like I thought there would be. But it was fine. Hey – it was free food!”
E&B does not have any specific events planned for the future, Rau said.
“It’s a good thing that it moved, they would have been way over capacity,” said Rau. “We did want to do business with them, and it’s unfortunate for them it didn’t work out. But it was good from a capacity standpoint.” ER
