Nine months. Most people recognize it as the time it takes to have a baby. In Greg Steinberger’s case, nine months was how long it took for his baby—Doc’s Bernstein’s Ice Cream Lab—to finally be rid of the banner that had been haunting it from across the street since October.
The “bannering” campaign, headed by Camarillo-based union Carpenters Local 150, seems to have finally come to an end. In addition to disappearing from outside Doc’s in Arroyo Grande, similar banners outside of the Santa Maria Town Center protesting KT Gymnastics and Lost World Pets have also come down over the last few weeks.
Steinberger said he feels the outpouring of support from locals played a part in the action.
“Definitely I think the community support was something they hadn’t encountered, and I think it made a big difference here,” he said.
When he got to work the day the banner wasn’t there, its absence took a moment to sink in, Steinberger said.
“Then the realization just hit me, and I yelled out ‘Woohoo!’” he recalled.
Arroyo Grande Mayor Tony Ferrara—whom Steinberger largely credits with getting the union to finally sit down to talk—said he was “pleasantly surprised” when word reached him of the banner’s removal.
Steinberger’s saga began in October when he was considering opening a second ice cream shop in the Santa Maria Town Center. Union officials accused him of hiring non-union workers for drywall construction at the proposed location in the mall.
It didn’t matter that Steinberger had nothing to do with their hiring; shortly thereafter, the infamous banner went up across the street from his shop in Arroyo Grande.
Ferrara said he had the city attorney research what kind of legal authority the city had to remove the banner.
“We looked at case law, what other cities—hundreds across the country—had done, issuing citations under local sign ordinances. In every single case, they were slapped with a federal lawsuit,” the mayor said.
About two months ago, Ferrara said, he started making personal appeals to union officials to arrange some kind of dialogue. After weeks of calling union organizer Joe Duran—and repeatedly having meetings arranged and then canceled—Ferrara said the organizer finally agreed to a sit down with Steinberger on Aug. 11.
The meeting was, Ferrara said, “fairly intense.”
Duran didn’t return phone calls as of press time seeking comment on the meeting.
Steinberger said he repeatedly tried to get Duran to talk about what had been going on the last nine months.
As Steinberger tells it: “[Duran] said that their motivation was that they were looking out for standard wage levels in America, and they feel that their livelihoods are being threatened by people hiring below the standard wage level, or possible undocumented workers.”
Steinberger added that when he heard the phrase “livelihoods are being threatened,” he agreed wholeheartedly: “I told him, ‘You’ve been trying to destroy [someone’s] livelihood for the past nine months, why shouldn’t I be upset about that?’”
Ferrara said his biggest concern during the meeting was how to ensure something like the bannering situation doesn’t happen again. One thing everyone could agree on: the importance of keeping the lines of communication open.
Though the banner may be down for now, the specter of its return still hangs over Doc’s, Steinberger said. He reports he was told the union still has the right to bring it back up if Doc’s does anything to “agitate” the situation.
This article appears in Aug 19-26, 2010.