Jeff Klein and Susan Star Paddock have disagreed in the past – and have done so quite vocally on the casino proposal for Gettysburg.
But the spokespersons for the pro- and anti-casino groups have both condemned a boycott against the Gettysburg location of women’s clothier Lane Bryant.
According to Kay Cool, who manages the store at the Gettysburg Outlet Shoppes, the Lane Bryant corporate office recently received letters from customers stating they would not shop there because the store donated a gift card to be used as a door prize at a Pro Casino Adams County rally.
“It was a major misunderstanding,” Cool said. “Our company has never even said it supported the casino.”
The $50 gift card was donated by the store and presented as a prize at a rally on April 23, said Klein. The rally raised money for the preservation of Monterey Pass, a site of fighting during the Confederate retreat from Gettysburg that is partly located in Franklin County.
Cool said she thought the donation was for historical preservation.
But as a result, Cool said, letters arrived stating local shoppers wouldn’t patronize Lane Bryant because of the store’s purported support for the casino proposed by Gettysburg businessman David LeVan.
“My company didn’t want any involvement,” Cool added. “We would take the whole thing back if we knew it was going to cause all this.”
According to Cool, No Casino Gettysburg is mentioned in the letters but group leader Susan Star Paddock
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says the organization doesn’t support the boycott.
“There has certainly been no official letter from No Casino,” she said. “This is just individuals using our name. Nobody should be calling for a boycott in the name of No Casino and it is not, never has been and never will be our policy.”
Paddock also acknowledged the importance of supporting local stores.
“We’re a pro-business and pro-preservation organization and we’re trying to save businesses and jobs in Adams County,” she said. “No Casino Gettysburg is in no way condoning these kind of actions and if you want something officially from No Casino Gettysburg, you can find it on our website.”
But Klein said this wasn’t the first attempt of the group’s members to “bully” businesses and he said nearly a dozen other stores have been targeted in boycotts.
“We’ve got some documented instances of boycotts and threatening e-mails that have been put out there,” Klein said. “The Lane Bryant issue was where we finally said enough is enough. Why would you do that to a local business when they donated a door prize to a good cause? Instead, we should be trying to do positive things for local businesses in these tough economic times.”
Cool said she hasn’t noticed a decrease in business since the boycott began, but she said she won’t be so quick to offer donations in the future.
And although Klein and Paddock have rarely agreed on matters of local concern, both stress the importance of helping local businesses.
“It’s not a policy of No Casino to boycott and it’s not a policy of Pro Casino either,” Paddock said.
Klein added, “Nobody wants to support that kind of hateful stuff and it’s extremely frustrating that people would stoop to that level.”
Copyright © 2010 – The York Daily Record
