Redondo Beach’s Catalina Coffee Company was buzzing on Thursday morning, thanks to an event organized to counter a series of social media posts criticizing the cafe for its owner’s stance on a ballot initiative that would replace the city’s aging power plant with mixed-use and retail development.
On Feb. 5, cafe owner Jeff Sallee released a statement on Catalina Coffee Company letterhead indicating his support for Measure B, encouraged by the measure’s potential social and economic benefits.
“Harbor Village will be a great place to meet and have fun … a beautiful new area we can all enjoy, with open views of the ocean not seen for a century,” he wrote.
Response from opponents to Measure B came quickly; a posting on Catalina Coffee Company’s Facebook page by Dolores Starr gained traction quickly, soon attracting the attention of political activist Jim Light, president of Building a Better Redondo.
“Hit them on Yelp,” he wrote. “Businesses should stay out of politics.”
Light’s review on Yelp read: “Business owner pushes politics at business place. Alienates residents. Not going back here again,” accompanied by a rating of one star out of five. It was soon joined by at least three others — and, though Sallee can’t prove it, he suspects the backlash to his letter caused another issue.
“The day after we released the statement, someone called the health department on us,” he said, telling that his business was accused of having dead insects scattered across its floor, prompting a review from restaurant inspectors. “We scored a 95, but from this point on we seem suspect.”
Light’s posting spurred Redondo Beach Mayor and Measure B supporter Steve Aspel to email correspondence of his own on Feb. 10, inviting the community to join him at Catalina Coffee and writing “Let’s prove to our citizens that is OK to take a stand and not be bullied out of business.”
“I’m furious,” Aspel said. “There’s nothing friendly about what Light wrote,” Aspel said..“That’s an attack phrase…you don’t try to destroy a small business because they don’t agree with what you say.”
District 2 Councilmember Bill Brand, an opponent of Measure B, had a measured view to the controversy. “There’s a whole lot more going on with the overdevelopment plan.of King Harbor than the petty politicking that goes on from both sides in a campaign,” he said. “People should be paying close attention to how they vote in March.”
In Light’s eyes, the response from supporters of the ballot measure has been overkill. “None of the leaders of the ‘No on B’ side are going ‘let’s boycott Catalina Coffee,’” Light said, taking care to say that none of his postings on Facebook moved beyond suggesting people make their feelings clear on Yelp. “I didn’t have a heartburn with him taking a political position or anything, I just didn’t want it forced on my while I’m sitting there, enjoying conversation over some coffee and food,” Light said.
“I served in the military, because I wanted to protect our rights, our freedom, our freedom of speech and everything else,” he said. “I totally support a business owner’s right to say whatever he wants, and if he wants to bring it to his business he’s welcome to. But that doesn’t mean his customers have to accept it, and I made the individual choice to not go back because of that.”
As of this posting, Light’s Yelp review (which had already been relegated to a less-visible section of “unrecommended reviews”) was removed, along with at least two other one-star reviews focusing on Catalina Coffee’s politics.
State Assemblymember David Hadley was unable to be in attendance, but had a member of his staff read a statement at Catalina Coffee, saying in part: “If Jim Light does not want to enjoy Catalina Coffee, that is his business,” Hadley wrote. “But that does not give anybody a right to misuse powerful digital media platforms to seek to punish one’s political opponents.”
While Sallee was encouraged by the multitudes who packed his coffeehouse, he admitted that he was hurt by the negative response to his support for Measure B.
“We’ve done everything we can to be a good community citizen and to have someone with a different political view attack our business in such a heinous matter is disheartening.”
