THIS IS ABOUT THE MAN GEORGE W. BUSH NOMINATED TO BE HEAD OF THE FAA.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
DEALE, MARYLAND “(THE) HAPPY HARBOR (INN)” RESTAURANT AND APPARENT BIKER-BAR WAS THE 2002 SITE OF A HELLS ANGELS/PAGANS SHOOTING RELATING TO AN APPARENT BIKER-GANG RECRUITING SESSION, IT IS ALSO A BAR-RESTAURANT REPORTEDLY EARLIER ADMONISHED BY A LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL FOR HAVING “TOO MANY SIGNS AND BANNERS”.
“HAPPY HARBOR” HAS BEEN DECRIED BY AT LEAST ONE MARYLAND GAY RIGHTS GROUP, AS WELL AS RIPPED BY APPARENT BIKERS THEMSELVES AT “WWW.BIKERNEWS.ORG”.
“HAPPY HARBOR” IS OWNED BY FAA HEAD BOBBY STURGELL’S FAMILY - INCLUDING HIS ONCE-CAREER-FBI MOM NAMED BARBARA STURGELL, A LADY WHO REPORTEDLY GIVES PLANE TICKETS TO HER RESTAURANT WORKERS, SUCH TICKETS OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.
BARBARA STURGELL MET BOBBY’S DAD BILL STURGELL WHILE BOTH PARENTS WORKED AT THE FBI. BARBARA STURGELL WORKED DIRECTLY UNDER J. EDGAR HOOVER. ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION BARBARA STURGELL VISITED J. EDGAR HOOVER’S HOME, DELIVERING HIM WEEKEND DOCUMENTS. BARBARA STURGELL AND HER FAMILY HOSTED HOOVER MORE THAN ONCE WHEN HOOVER VISITED THE “HAPPY HARBOR” STURGELL FAMILY BAR/RESTAURANT.
“HAPPY HARBOR” IS A BAR/RESTAURANT WHERE FAA BOBBY STURGELL REPORTEDLY HAS HIMSELF WORKED, AS RECENTLY AS 1999.
IN 2006, “HAPPY HARBOR” BORE A PROFESSIONALLY-PREPARED, ENAMEL-PAINTED SIGN FOR ALMOST 3 WEEKS READING: “ATTENTION BIKERS: NO COLOREDS, FAGS…”[SIC]. THE BAR/RESTAURANT DID NOT APPEAR TO HUSTLE TO TAKE THE SIGN DOWN. INSTEAD, THE SIGN WAS KEPT UP, WITH THE OFFENDING TEXT “EDITED” BY A PAINT-OVER TO PARTIALLY-BLOCK THE “EDS” AND THE “F” LETTERS ONLY. THE ORIGINAL LETTERS COULD STILL THEREAFTER BE SEEN THROUGH THE PAINT.
THE ORIGINAL, PRE-EDIT, SIGN WAS OBTAINED CIRCA 2002 – AND WAS INSTALLED! - BY ONE OF THE THREE STURGELL BROTHERS – THAT IS, EITHER BOBBY STURGELL HIMSELF, OR ELSE HIS BROTHER BILLY OR HIS BROTHER JIMMY.
THE LINKS FOLLOW:
-----------------
http://www.bayweekly.com/year98/dock6_26.html
The 1998 text at this link confirms that Bobby Sturgell grew up in Deale, MD “where his family owns Happy Harbor, the landmark waterfront restaurant”. Bobby went to Southern High School, the Naval Academy, and UVA Law School.
Dock of the Bay
Volume VI Number 26
July 2-8, 1998
· Campaign Trail: Top Gun Sturgell Flies Into Political Combat
· Political First: Annapolis Mayor Ratifies 'Inner' Peace Treaty
· Cancer Crusade Gala Set for August 6
· Nationwide Clean Boating Launches Locally
Campaign Trail: Top Gun Sturgell Flies Into Political Combat
Mike Miller, top dog in the Maryland Senate says he plans to keep his eye on top-gunning Bobby Sturgell, Below, who would have Miller's Southern Maryland Senate seat.
As a fighter pilot, Bobby Sturgell is
accustomed to the F/A-18 Hornet, a twin-engine attack jet with a 40-foot
wingspan. The Hornet can fly 400mph upside down and hit 700mph right side up.
Sturgell, 38, a Republican from Owings in northern Calvert County, is attempting to enter politics in similarly speedy fashion by challenging the Maryland State Senate seat held by powerful incumbent Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.
"For those who are disillusioned with politics and politicians, for those who are disappointed with Maryland's anti-family and anti-business policies and for those who believe we should be building schools, not stadiums, I encourage you to climb on board," Sturgell said in filing his candidacy this week.
The District 27 seat he is seeking includes southern Anne Arundel, northern Calvert and southern Prince George's County. Sturgell talked with allies about running for Congress, but in the end decided to challenge the seat held by Miller since 1974.
While Sturgell may be short on political experience, his resume is not lacking.
Sturgell, 38, grew up in Deale, where his family owns Happy Harbor, the landmark waterfront restaurant. He is a graduate of Southern High School, where he was salutatorian, and he went on to the Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1982. During his Navy career, he was on the staff of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun, where he trained Navy and Marine Corps fighter pilots.
He graduated from the University of Virginia law school in 1994. Now, he works as a flight operations supervisor for United Airlines and is a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve assigned to the Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.
Sturgell said that he would stress education, ethics and economics. In announcing his candidacy, he said he was disturbed by a shortage of classrooms in some of Maryland's school districts.
"I enjoy professional sports as much as the next person but we should be building schools, not stadiums," he said.
Sturgell's candidacy is, by most accounts, as uphill as the climb of one of those Hornets. With the economy perking along, incumbent politicians have fared well in elections this year, suggesting that voter anger that carried challengers into office earlier this decade has ebbed.
Nonetheless, Sturgell's backgrounds suggest that he has plenty of energy to accompany a winning smile and that rock-solid resume.
In assessing his would-be challenger, Miller sounded less like an adversary than a senator proud of a local boy made good. "He has great qualifications: good family, the Sturgells; very impressive education - Southern High School salutatorian and the Naval Academy. He's got a good background, a flyer. The guy is going to do well with certain voters," Miller said.
Miller, of Clinton, who began his legislative career in 1971, declared his own candidacy for re-election this week. He is seeking a seventh term in the Senate.
For Miller, Sturgell's candidacy means more than a re-election hurdle: It will take time away from his many political duties; among them re-electing Democratic senators, raising money for promising party-members statewide and helping to orchestrate the campaign of Diane Evans against Anne Arundel County Executive John Gary.
But Miller asserted that he won't take Sturgell lightly. "I'm confident that I'm going to win," he said. I'm not confident I'm going to win every precinct. I can't take him for granted. It's my election to lose."
-BL
Political First: Annapolis Mayor Ratifies 'Inner' Peace Treaty
In politics, peace is a temporary state in which your adversaries are holding fire and your friends are taking a break from planning to take your job.
But here was Annapolis Mayor Dean Johnson, marching last weekend with a local who's who of touchy-feely types, preparing to become the first politician to sign a document called the Inner Peace Treaty.
"We hope that others around the country and the world will be inspired to continue the ratification of the Inner Peace Treaty," said Alice Yeager, president of the Annapolis Healing Arts Alliance.
So what the heck is the Inner Peace Treaty?
It is a document whose signers vow to create awareness of the responsibility of each person to create peace within themselves. Among its words:
"With this treaty, I agree to reconnect with the highest aspects of my being. Toward greater harmony and peace from within, I acknowledge and release all unforgiveness I have created. I choose to be at peace with the process of my life as an unfolding journey toward greater love and joy."
Members of the Healing Arts Alliance, who organized the event, said they wanted to bring modern meaning to our forefathers' words from the Treaty of Paris. That 1783 treaty, which ended the War for Independence, talked of the need to "promote and secure both peace and harmony having ... laid the foundation of peace."
Johnson and the other inner peace celebrants marched from the Susan C. Cam pbell Park at the Annapolis City Dock up Main Street to the State House. During a closing ceremony at Lawyer's Mall, all were offered a sunflower seed in keeping with the theme of the event: "Peace begins within each of us as a seed thought."
For Johnson, a Republican in his first term, the challenge may be to maintain his newly vowed inner peace amid the slings and arrows of public office.
-NBT
-----------------
http://www.bayweekly.com/year98/letters6_35.html
This 1998 text reflects a letter to an editor written by FAA Bobby Sturgell wherein Bobby confirms his phone number and that his mom can be found at “the Happy Harbor Inn in Deale” if anyone wants to come in and talk politics.
Letters to the Editor
Volume VI Number 35
September 3-6, 1998
Look Before You Vote
Dear New Bay Times~Weekly:
Your recent editorial encouraging voters to "get their heads out of the sand" (July 30-Aug. 5) and pay attention to the candidates and their issues is both timely and wise advice. Too often, voters wait until the last minute to determine for which candidates they will vote. Sometimes the decision turns on a name that is recognized and other times on advice from a friend. Only a small number will listen to the candidates' issues or attend candidate forums or debates. Such tendencies are unfortunate because, as you point out, decisions our elected officials make affect us every day of our lives.
This year, there are plenty of issues that require our attention: education, ethics, bringing quality jobs to Maryland, taxes, helping small business, gambling, growth and dumping dredged sludge in the Bay off Anne Arundel County. While all of these are important to me, at least one should strike a chord in everyone's soul.
As a candidate for the Senate of Maryland, my views on most of these issues are located on my web page (www.erols.com/sturgell). You can also send me an e-mail (bobbysturgell@sompuserve.com). Give me a call (410/257-2992) or stop at the Happy Harbor Inn in Deale and ask for my mom. She's sure to give you an earful.
-Robert A. 'Bobby' Sturgell, Owings
Vote Your Values
Dear New Bay Times~Weekly:
This May, the Calvert County Commissioners set two dangerous precedents. By a four-to-one vote (Linda Kelley opposed) they supported development of the proposed Chesapeake Plaza shopping center in Owings by approving public sewer.
This permits major commercial development outside a town center, in direct violation of the County Master Plan. It also approves the destruction and paving-over of some 8,000 square feet of high-value Chesapeake Bay watershed wetlands and floodplains.
Commissioners Mister, Buehler, Krug and Frazer voted their approval without consulting the county government's Environmental Commission about possible environmental damage. When the Commission's strong opposition to the project came to light, they refused to reconsider or hold new public hearings.
To make matters worse, last month Maryland Department of the Environment determined that the wetlands were even larger than the developer's site plans originally showed. Environmental consequences of Chesapeake Plaza would be even greater.
To their credit, County Planning and Zoning informed the developer that construction requiring the destruction of environmentally sensitive wetlands and floodplains is illegal under county ordinances.
Unfortunately, at an August 13 Zoning Board appeals hearing, the developer's lawyers attempted to find loopholes in the county ordinance. This led the Appeals Board to defer their decision until their meeting September 3.
I encourage anyone who cares about Calvert's rural legacy to join me in opposing Chesapeake Plaza.
Please write to Commissioners Mister, Buehler, Krug and Frazer, asking them to formally reopen public hearings based on the new environmental impact information.
Question them closely during their re-election campaign about their claims to support the environment and responsible growth. If they take no action to reverse their decision, please vote against them in November.
-David S. Bury, Owings
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-----------------
http://www.pamspaulding.com/weblog/2006/05/quaint.html
This May 23, 2006 text recounts how on, as early as May 2 or May 3, 2006, The Happy Harbor Inn had a sign displayed next to its main entrance saying: “ATTENTION BIKERS: NO COLOREDS, FAGS,[sic] CLUB ATTIRE (no) EXCEPTIONS”. At least two people saw this sign and its text on May 3, 2006 when visiting the Sturgell family restaurant. On May 20, nearly three weeks later, the sign had been changed. The “f” and the “eds” had been covered by white paint, but the faint outline of the underlying letters was still nevertheless visible. On May 20 the sign read: “ATTENTION: BIKERS; NO COLOR[,] []AGS, CLUB ATTIRE (no) EXCEPTIONS”. The article continues about how Barbara Sturgell contributes to the GOP and had worked at the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, and how Hoover himself came by the Sturgell family’s restaurant from time to time. The text further recounts how Barbara Sturgell posted the sign on the door circa 2001 [2002] after a fight “outside” the Happy Harbor between Hells Angels and Pagans “ended in a cloud of pepper spray and bullets”. Barbara Sturgell decried what she claimed was a vandal or prankster doctoring the sign in 2006, but Ted Harris, an African-American who claims to have frequented the Happy Harbor since the 1960s, told a reporter that the sign was NOT doctored. Said Harris: “It was all in the same ink. It was professionally done… When we came back, it was painted over, but you could still see the ‘E-D-S’ from the word ‘colored[s]’”.
An Online Magazine in the Reality-Based Community.
Quaint
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Walking into the Happy
Harbor is like walking into a time warp.
-- ironic review of the Inn at Bay Weekly Online
Fags and coloreds...what a blast from the past, with a twist! The Maryland town of Deale's The Happy Harbor Inn really has a handle on that old hospitality thing. (WashBlade):
The Happy Harbor Inn, a
popular dockside restaurant in the southern Maryland town of Deale, displayed
the sign next to its main entrance as saying, "ATTENTION BIKERS: NO
COLOREDS, FAGS, CLUB ATTIRE, (no) EXCEPTIONS," according to two people who
visited the restaurant on May 3.
On May 20, nearly three weeks later, the sign had been changed. A visit to the
restaurant by a Washington Blade reporter showed that the letters
"eds" and "f" had been covered by white paint, with a faint
outline of the letters still visible.
From a distance, the sign on May 20 read, "ATTENTION BIKERS: NO COLOR,
AGS, CLUB ATTIRE (no) EXCEPTIONS."
"It could be a violation of Article 49 of the state's human relations
code," said J. Neil Bell, deputy director of Maryland's Human Relations
Commission
...Records with the Anne Arundel County Board of Liquor Commissioners list Barbara
A. Sturgell and Karen Kay Sturgell as the owners of the Happy Harbor Inn.
By the way, Barbara Sturgell, known as The Anchor of Deale, big surprise, contributes to the GOP. An interesting tidbit - she worked for the FBI under queen J. Edgar Hoover as a correspondence typist; he came by the restaurant from time to time. (BayWeekly):
Larger-than-life J.
Edgar Hoover was known as an iron-fisted FBI head; only after his death was his
private life scrutinized. Barbara Sturgell rose to become superintendent of the
correspondence section, a trusted position, and had the job of delivering
paperwork to Hoover's home on weekends.
"I think he was a great man," she says, recalling how she instructed
her employees to work hard when Hoover came around and never to make eye
contact with him.
Hat
tip, PageOneQ
UPDATE: As mentioned
in the comments by Lulu, a subsequent
WaPo article includes the reaction of the owner of the restaurant,
who was not available for comment in the Blade piece:
Barbara Sturgell posted
the sign on the door of the Happy Harbor Inn in Deale four years ago after a
fight between Hells Angels and Pagans ended in a cloud of pepper spray and bullets.
The 72-year-old business owner broke down and cried yesterday as she wondered
why someone had altered the sign on the door by painting out certain letters
and adding others to discourage black and gay patrons.
"I have no idea who would mess with my sign. I can't believe that someone
would be that vicious," said Sturgell, who has run the inn for 30 years.
That would seem to put things into context, but the article also quotes a patron who sees it differently.
Ted Harris, an African
American who has frequented the restaurant since the 1960s, doesn't hold
Sturgell blameless. He and a friend spotted the altered sign on the door during
a visit May 3.
"It was all in the same ink. It was professionally done," he said.
". . . When we came back, it was painted over, but you still could see the
'E-D-S' from the word 'colored.' "
And the Blade updated its article with additional information that still leaves the situation murky.
Sturgell said that about
three weeks ago, one of her employees told her someone "altered" the
sign by replacing the letter "r" with an "f" and made a
similar substitution to change the word "colors" to "coloreds."
"I think they wrote it in with magic markers," Sturgell said in a
telephone interview on May 23. "We took Clorox and wiped it off," she
said. "It was at night when it happened."
When told that two witnesses reported seeing the sign with the words
"fag" and "coloreds" at lunchtime as far back as May 2,
Sturgell said her employees most likely first noticed the altered letters
during their nighttime shift.
"I never saw it," she said. "I walk by there almost every day,
but I didn't notice anything until an employee brought it to my attention."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301649.html
This May 24, 2006 Washington Post article recounts the sign saga as well. The article indicates that Barbara Sturgell put the sign on the door of The Happy Harbor[] in 2002 after a fight between Hells Angels ended in “a cloud of pepper spray and bullets”. The article quotes Ted Harris as above, and then observing: “The controversy highlights attitudes about race and sexuality that are now being challenged in the fast-gentrifying community 30 miles southeast of Washington”, also stating “[Anne Arundel]County police recorded 76 [hate] crimes in 2005, compared with 66 in 2004”.
ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY
Defaced Sign Puts Bar Owner on Spot
Words Altered to Insult Blacks, Gays
By Hamil R. Harris and Daniel de Vise
Washington
Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; Page B05
"Attention Bikers! No Colors, No Rags, No Club Attire, No Exceptions."
Barbara Sturgell posted the sign on the door of the Happy Harbor Inn in Deale four years ago after a fight between Hells Angels and Pagans ended in a cloud of pepper spray and bullets.
The 72-year-old business owner broke down and cried yesterday as she wondered why someone had altered the sign on the door by painting out certain letters and adding others to discourage black and gay patrons.
"I have no idea who would mess with my sign. I can't believe that someone would be that vicious," said Sturgell, who has run the inn for 30 years.
The Maryland Commission on Human Relations has launched an investigation into the incident after an inquiry from several news organizations.
"It is our intent to send an investigator to the facility to make a determination on what happened," said J. Neil Bell, deputy director of the commission. ". . . If someone added letters to change the meaning, then we would try to determine that. Then we would try to find out how long was the sign there and was it established to limit access to people in protected groups."
Ted Harris, an African American who has frequented the restaurant since the 1960s, doesn't hold Sturgell blameless. He and a friend spotted the altered sign on the door during a visit May 3.
"It was all in the same ink. It was professionally done," he said. ". . . When we came back, it was painted over, but you still could see the 'E-D-S' from the word 'colored.' "
Harris did not file a complaint, but he contacted the Washington Blade, a newspaper for the gay community, and several other news outlets.
The controversy highlights attitudes about race and sexuality that are now being challenged in the fast-gentrifying community 30 miles southeast of Washington.
Deale sits between two creeks and is quickly changing from an enclave of tobacco growers and watermen to a regional getaway for yuppies. William Tucker, who is African American, was on a charter boat Monday filled with black and white men. "We come here all the time, and we don't have any problems," he said.
The county has logged more than its share of hate crimes in recent years, local civil rights leaders said. County police recorded 76 such crimes in 2005, compared with 66 in 2004. The Human Relations Commission has a Southern Maryland office in Leonardtown -- which handles southern Anne Arundel -- "and we are busy in that office," Bell said.
Some of the more highly publicized incidents have occurred in the area known as South County. In 2000, the Anne Arundel school superintendent, who was African American, received a death threat over a busing plan. In 2003, racist and neo-Nazi graffiti appeared at South River High School.
Sturgell said her inn is a frequent host to chamber of commerce meetings and charity fundraisers attended by all types of people. She said she has provided scholarships to African American college students and given money to help rebuild a black church that burned down.
She said that she knows the history of Deale and that she may have customers with prejudices. But Sturgell said she is not a racist.
"I have treated people with nothing but kindness," she said.
The state is investigating an incident in which this sign at an Anne Arundel bar was vandalized to convey a message disparaging black and gay people. The sign has been touched up to remove the offensive messages. (By Hamil R. Harris -- The Washington Post)
-----------------
http://www.washingtonblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=6985
This May 24, 2006 article recounts the sign saga as well, and shows a photo of the sign after it was edited to read “…NO COLOR[,] []AGS,…”. An official from the Maryland Human Relations Commission, possibly a
“J. Neil Bell” the Deputy Director later mentioned in the article, is earlier in the article quoted as saying “his office would look into whether the sign violated the state’s human rights law” – suggesting that at least one governmental investigation was in fact done. In the article, Barbara Sturgell is quoted as saying “HER SON[!] had the sign INSTALLED [emphasis supplied] at least five years ago in an effort to discourage rowdy motorcyclists from disturbing her regular customers… There was a shooting on the highway by bikers in front of my parking lot” [as early as 2002 or 2001]. The article quotes an airline pilot named Scott Edwards an unnamed friend of his who saw the sign reading “NO COLOREDS, NO FAGS…”[sic] at lunch on May 2, 2006. The unnamed friend said: “It was a professionally-prepared sign… It was obvious that all the letters were uniform and painted the same way. It was enamel paint”. Barbara Sturgell is quoted as saying “she could not provide the identity of the company that made the sign, saying HER SON[!] [emphasis supplied] handled the arrangements for the sign and was unavailable for an interview”. The Anne Arundel County Human Relations Commission could not be reached for comment at the article’s press time.
Harbor
restaurant owner denies sign barred 'fags' and 'coloreds'
Guests dispute defense that pranksters
altered professional sign
By LOU
CHIBBARO JR. | May 22, 4:49 PM
UPDATED:
May 24, 10:32 AM
DEALE, Md. — The owner of a restaurant near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland says an unidentified prankster altered a sign outside the restaurant's entrance earlier this month in a way that made it appear to prohibit gays and blacks from entering its premises.
But two people who reported seeing the sign on May 2 said it had all the markings of a professionally prepared sign, with uniformly painted letters saying, "ATTENTION BIKERS: NO COLOREDS, FAGS, CLUB ATTIRE, (no) EXCEPTIONS."
While the origin of the words "fag" and "coloreds" on the sign is in dispute, everyone agrees that the sign has been displayed for some time next to the main entrance of the Happy Harbor Inn, a popular dockside restaurant in the Southern Maryland town of Deale.
On May 20, nearly three weeks after the two visitors reported seeing the words "coloreds" and "fags," the sign had been changed. A visit to the restaurant by a Washington Blade reporter showed that the letters "eds" and "f" appeared to have been covered by white paint, with a faint outline of the letters still visible.
From a distance, the sign on May 20 read, "ATTENTION BIKERS: NO COLOR, AGS, CLUB ATTIRE (no) EXCEPTIONS."
A story about the sign on the Washington Blade's website on May 22 created a stir among the restaurant's regular customers and gay activists, and prompted a flurry of commentaries posted on Internet message boards.
At least two gay men familiar with the restaurant defended it, saying the owners had never discriminated against gay customers.
An official with the Maryland Human Relations Commission said his office would look into whether the sign violated the state's human rights law.
Under Maryland law, discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations — such as restaurants and hotels — is prohibited based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and marital status, among other categories.
Happy Harbor co-owner Barbara Sturgell called the flap "much to do about nothing." She said her son had the sign installed at least five years ago in an effort to discourage rowdy motorcyclists from disturbing her regular customers.
According to Sturgell, the original wording on the sign said no "colors" and no "rags," which she said referred to motorcycle club insignias and head bandanas.
"It's intended for bikers that cause problems," she said. "There was a shooting on the highway by bikers in front of my parking lot," Sturgell said, referring to an incident that occurred more than five years ago.
Sturgell said that about three weeks ago, one of her employees told her someone "altered" the sign by replacing the letter "r" with an "f" and made a similar substitution to change the word "colors" to "coloreds."
"I think they wrote it in with magic markers," Sturgell said in a telephone interview on May 23. "We took Clorox and wiped it off," she said. "It was at night when it happened."
When told that two witnesses reported seeing the sign with the words "fag" and "coloreds" at lunchtime as far back as May 2, Sturgell said her employees most likely first noticed the altered letters during their nighttime shift.
"I never saw it," she said. "I walk by there almost every day, but I didn't notice anything until an employee brought it to my attention."
Guests dispute owner's account
Scott Edwards, an airline pilot and former D.C. resident who was visiting the city earlier this month, said he and two friends drove to Deale for lunch on May 2. He said the three were stunned as they noticed the sign when they walked along a deck next to a harbor, where the restaurant is located.
"It was very clear," he said of the sign. "It said no coloreds, no fags, and no bikers. It just seemed weird," Edwards said. "It was anachronistic."
A friend of Edwards, who asked not to be identified because he is not openly gay in his profession, said he, too, saw the sign. He said he was certain that the words "fag" and "coloreds" were not penned in with a magic marker by a prankster.
"It was a professionally prepared sign," the friend said. "It was obvious that all the letters were uniform and painted the same way. It was enamel paint," he said.
"I was astonished to see something like that in this day and age," he said.
On Saturday, May 20, when a reporter visited, the sign bore the word "color" and the letters "ags" in the space where the two witnesses said the words "coloreds" and "fags" had appeared. The surface of the sign covering those spaces appeared to be freshly painted with white glossy paint.
Sturgell said she could not provide the identity of the company that made the sign, saying her son handled the arrangements for the sign and was unavailable for an interview.
BayDreaming.com, an online guide to the Chesapeake Bay region, describes Deale as a small fishing town that is home to more than 40 charter fishing boats.
"Deale is a popular destination for boaters located on Rockhold Creek in southern Anne Arundel County, on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay," the guide says. "Most of Deale's charter fishing fleet is docked at the Happy Harbor docks. Happy Harbor Inn includes a bar and restaurant with outside deck and is a popular destination."
Larry Stansbury, treasurer of the Spartan gay motorcycle club, said club members frequently ride along the Chesapeake Bay's back roads. He said he has never encountered anything like the sign in Deale.
Dan Furmansky, executive director of Equality Maryland, said the group would ask state officials to take action against the restaurant if it doesn't remove or change the sign.
Restaurant could face fines
J. Neil Bell, deputy director of the Maryland Human Relations Commission, said the original version of the sign – if it could be proven to have existed – would have violated Article 49 of the state's human relations code.
He said the commission has jurisdiction to take action against businesses that violate the human relations code even if a member of the public doesn't complain.
"We can file the complaint," he said.
Bell said his office would have to determine whether "credible evidence" exists that the original version of the sign included the words "coloreds" and "fags."
He said the office would also seek to determine whether anyone was denied entry into the establishment on the basis of their race, sexual orientation or other factors.
All of this could be moot, however, because the remedy to discrimination stemming from the Happy Harbor Inn sign would be to take down or change the sign, Bell said.
In a related development, the website for the Anne Arundel County Human Relations Commission includes a litany of prohibited categories of discrimination that includes "personal appearance" as well as race and sexual orientation.
Neither Bell nor a spokesperson for the Anne Arundel County Human Relations Commission could be reached for comment on May 23 to determine whether the Happy Harbor Inn's sign banning people wearing biker insignias or bandanas violates the "personal appearance" clause in the county's human rights law.
In an interview the previous day, Bell said the penalty for a first offense violation of the state's law's public accommodation clause is $500. He said the law calls for a penalty of $1,000 and $2,500 for a second and third offense.
The Happy Harbor Inn apparently edited a sign outside its Deale, Md., location, but the meaning is still visible.
-----------------
http://bbuns.proboards15.com/index.cgi?board=TattleTails&action=display&thread=1066847047
This article refers to the 2002 incident as a drive-by shooting “at” the restaurant: “In May 2002, two prospective Hells Angels members and a bystander were shot at the Happy Harbor Inn at Southern Anne Arundel County after a brawl with Pagans”.
Motorcycle
gang rivalry likely motive for shooting
Two men injured at club as turf war intensifies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Laura Barnhardt
Sun Staff
Originally published January 6, 2004
A shooting at a Baltimore County nightclub appears to have been sparked by a
rivalry between motorcycle gangs, putting police on the watch for what they
fear could become an ugly turf war in Maryland, authorities said yesterday.
The gunman in the shooting Sunday night at Club Tattle Tails in Edgemere was
wearing a vest identifying him as a prospective member of the Hells Angels
motorcycle gang, and the two shooting victims are apparently members of the
Pagans gang, police said. One of the victims remained in critical condition
last night.
"Unfortunately, these types of incidents tend to escalate until law
enforcement intervenes," said Maryland State Police Lt. Terry Katz, a
nationally recognized expert on bikers who has worked undercover to infiltrate
gangs, including the Pagans. "Police will be the ones who end this. It's
tit-for-tat with these guys. Unfortunately, it becomes a matter of honor."
The shooting comes as the two rival gangs' battles on the East Coast have
intensified in recent years, prompting police from New York to Baltimore to prepare for retaliatory violence, according to experts on motorcycle gangs.
The two gangs have been particularly active in Southern Maryland, and the
president of a Hells Angels chapter there pleaded guilty to federal drug and
weapons charges yesterday.
In Maryland -- which has long been territory for the Pagans, who were founded
in Prince George's County -- rival Hells Angels gangs have been recruiting
members for several years, Katz and other law enforcement officials say.
The tensions have escalated into violence several times -- including a drive-by
shooting in May 2002 at a popular restaurant in Anne Arundel County and a fight at a liquor store in Calvert County this past summer, police said.
After Sunday's shooting at the club in the 2100 block of Sparrows Point Road,
Charles Raymond Zepp, 23, of Eldersburg, was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center,
where he remained in critical condition yesterday, a hospital spokeswoman said.
He was shot in the chest, according to police.
The second victim, Timothy McDowell, 38, of Frederick, was shot in the side and
was listed in serious but stable condition at Shock Trauma yesterday.
Witnesses in the club told police that Zepp and another man were walking toward
the front door when the man pulled out a handgun and started shooting inside
the club. It was unclear whether words were exchanged or whether an argument
was ongoing, police said.
However, investigators believe gang rivalry was the motive for the shooting,
said Officer Shawn Vinson, a county police spokes¬ man.
After being shot, Zepp and McDowell chased the gunman and a man with him
outside. The suspects may have fled in a red pickup truck, police said.
A woman who answered the phone at the nightclub yesterday declined to comment.
Police described the gunman as a white male, 6 feet 9 inches, weighing 340
pounds. He has brown hair and eyes, a fair complexion and was wearing a black
vest identifying him as a Maryland "prospect" of the Hells Angels.
His companion, who is 6 feet 2 inches with a blond flat top, was wearing a
similar black vest and jeans, police said.
Zepp was arrested and charged on drug charges and possession of a handgun in in
August by members of the Baltimore Police Organized Crime Unit, which had
recently started investigating outlaw motorcycle gangs in the area. The task
force is overseen by the Maryland State Police Homeland Security and
Intelligence Bureau.
Bill Toohey, a Baltimore County police spokesman, said motorcycle and other
types of gangs exist in the county but are "not a widespread problem. ...
The violence we've seen has been ... gang members on gang members."
The Hells Angels began appearing in Calvert County in January 2002, when
members of a motorcycle gang known as the Tribes became a Hells Angels prospect
club, according to investigators with the Calvert County sheriff's department.
The next month, someone set the Lusby home of a prospective Hells Angels member
on fire, Calvert law enforcement officials said. Investigators suspect the
Pagans in the fire, but state fire marshals have not concluded their
investigation.
In May 2002, two prospective Hells Angels members and a bystander were shot at
the Happy Harbor Inn in southern Anne Arundel County after a brawl with Pagans,
police said.
The Hells Angels prospects became full members of the motorcycle gang in
January last year, authorities said. Except for a fistfight outside a Chesapeake Beach liquor store this past summer, there has been no other reported violence
between the gangs, according to Calvert County law enforcement sources.
But police around the state and neighboring states have been closely watching
the situation and actively investigating their activities.
In federal court in Greenbelt yesterday, the president of the North Beach chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Calvert County pleaded guilty to
selling cocaine and illegally possessing a firearm, federal prosecutors
announced yesterday.
John Anthony Beal, 38, of Dunkirk was arrested as part of a Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation into the Warlocks Outlaw
Motorcycle Organization.
Two undercover agents became members of the Warlocks motorcycle club and had
contacts with members of the local Hells Angels chapter, prosecutors said,
adding that Beal faces 20 years in prison at sentencing scheduled for March 24.
Violence involving Pagans, Hells Angels and other biker gangs has been
intensifying in areas such as Philadelphia and New York in the past several
years. One gang member was killed at a Hells Angels banquet on Long Island in 2002.
"Everyone's keeping an eye on the situation," said New Jersey State
Police Lt. Tom Alexander. "Everyone's seeing Hells Angels expanding into
areas where there previously had been only Pagans. ... Everyone wants to be
king of the mountain -- Number 1. Compounding that is that some Pagans have
defected to become Hells Angels, which has exacerbated the situation."
Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun | Get home delivery
-----------------
http://www.bikernews.org/wtn/news.php?extend.567
This article quotes Barbara Sturgell: “I don’t want to be known as a rough biker’s hangout”… “I have a lot of black customers…I have black friends, and I have gay friends”.
Owner denies sign barred ‘fags’ (Gay)
|
Washington Blade Posted By MJF on Thursday 25 May 2006 - 05:11:00 Biker News | |
|
Owner denies sign barred ‘fags’ (Gay)
Washington Blade
Guests dispute Md. restaurant owner’s claim of vandalism
By LOU CHIBBARO JR
Thursday, May 25, 2006
DEALE, Md. — The owner of a restaurant near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland says
an unidentified prankster altered a sign outside the restaurant’s entrance
earlier this month in a way that made it appear to prohibit gays and blacks
from entering its premises.
But two people who reported seeing the sign on May 2 said it had all the
markings of a professionally prepared sign, with uniformly painted letters
reading, “ATTENTION BIKERS: NO COLOREDS, FAGS, CLUB ATTIRE, (no) EXCEPTIONS.”
[ Read the rest ... ]
Posted By MJF on Thursday 25 May 2006 - 08:11:01 Biker News |
|
Read/Post Comment: 6
-----------------
http://wpost.pictopia.com/viewdetails/item/167394/size/800/
This website cites a Washington Post “feed” and depicts the offending sign as of May 22, 2006, after it was “edited” to read “…NO COLOR[,] []AGS,…”.
![[167394-5197216]](167394_800_0_noseskrid.jpg)
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http://www.bayweekly.com/year99/issue7_22/lead7_22.html
This 1999 text regards Bobby’s mother “Barbara Sturgell of Happy Harbor”, including her photo with her husband Bill and son FAA Bobby Sturgell. The text also confirms that Bobby himself was working at the restaurant as recently as 1999, “hoisting shrubs and unloading ice at the waterfront restaurant”. The text also confirms that Barbara worked as a correspondence typist for the FBI. Barbara met her husband Bill at the FBI. Bill also worked at the FBI. They married in 1955. Barbara became Superintendent of the FBI’s correspondence section, and delivered paperwork to J. Edgar Hoover’s home on weekends. She instructed employees to not make eye contact with Hoover in the office. After having 3 (of, later, 5) children (Sharon, Billy, Bobby, Karen, and Jimmy), she left the FBI although Hoover wrote her a letter asking her to take 3 months off and reconsider. At the restaurant, Barbara is known to give “plane tickets” to her workers, but the article doesn’t specify who she gets the plane tickets from. Per the article, a few years prior to 1999, an Anne Arundel county inspector warned Barbara that Happy Harbor had “too many signs and banners”.
Real People
Three of Chesapeake Country's Treasures
When we talk about the character of communities - and that's a favorite subject as Anne Arundel and Calvert counties plan for the 21st century - the subject always gets back to people. This week, we inaugurate an occasional series profiling some of the people who bring our communities to life.
We start with Southern Anne Arundel County, where two groups of citizen planners are reaching out as we write to discover the strengths and chart the course of the county's last rural stronghold. Read on and you'll meet three citizens who are noteworthy in themselves as well as types of some of the brightest threads in that region's rich weave:
Old-timer Captain Ed Crandell interviewed on his 93rd birthday;
Pioneer Barbara Sturgell, who came to Deale and made a difference;
Newcomer John Osborne, who's taking a new twist on preserving the region's agricultural tradition.
Captain Ed Crandell of Town
Point
50 years on the water; 93 on the land
by Mary Catherine Ball
"He's lived here all of his life. He can remember when they drove covered wagons," Happy Harbor bartender J.R. Hvizda tells me.
She's not quite telling the truth. Captain Edwin P. Crandell missed the covered wagons. But not horse and buggies - or much else.
When he was 14 years old, Captain Ed tells me, his appendix burst. His father visited daily, driving the 20 miles to the hospital in Annapolis in a horse and buggy.
The third generation to live on the family's 99.5-acre property in Town Point, Capt. Ed was born on May 25, 1906 on a point that to this day is one of the prettiest spots in Anne Arundel County.
photos by Mary Catherine Ball Capt. Ed Crandell at 93 still keeps his boat at Town Point Marina, which his son, Ned, at right, has run and owned since Ed retired in 1986.
Town Point Marina sits at the end of windy and sometimes one-lane Leitch Road, off of Deale's Franklin-Gibson Road. On this weekday, life at the marina is quiet and Capt. Ed is painted upon a background of blue, cool water and boats swaying in the wind. His body is lean and Bay-worn; his eyes are searching - whether scanning for familiar faces or, looking past the marina, entering a pool of memories.
I caught up with the captain on his 93rd birthday, as he looked forward to an oyster lunch at Benedict with his son, Edwin M. 'Capt. Ned' Crandell, master of Town Point Marina since his father's retirement in 1986.
"I feel like I'm getting old. I've got arthritis in my knees, and I can't do much walking," Capt. Ed laments.
But don't let him fool you. He is not a man who sits down while life passes him by.
Each morning, Capt. Ed fixes breakfast, and each day he cleans his house. Until three years ago, he kept the yard in top shape, ceasing only when his son insisted.
He wouldn't miss a gathering with the folks from Town Point Marina. Each year they come together for "little parties, cookouts and crab feasts when the crabs come on.
"Crabs are so high now, I don't know how anyone can afford to eat 'em," Crandell says, though a handful of crabbers still call his family marina their home port. Prices are only one of the many things that have changed during Crandell's life.
"When I was running parties in here, my dad and I, weren't no more than four or five people taking out parties. Now they're everywhere, Rod 'n' Reel, over the Eastern Shore, up the Bay and down Happy Harbor," Crandell says, laughing.
Fifty years of Crandell's life was spent running fishing parties across the Bay, many of them for Washingtonians from the FBI or universities. "People from uptown didn't do much drinking, but boy could they gamble," Crandell remembers. "They were all nice fellas, but money would be all over the boat."
Crandell took on several other tasks as well. During the war, he worked for the Navy Department in Annapolis. He also farmed and labored as a carpenter.
The Crandells settled in Town Point in 1850. Taking 500 acres under their wing, the family owned milk cows and beef cattle, keeping a herd of steers until eight years ago. Pigs also graced the farm, offering the family fresh ham and ground sausage.
"I think staying here and trying to keep the land that my daddy left me, I think that's about the best thing that I've ever done. I love it here. Not a bit of regrets," Crandell says.
Leaving the water would be near impossible for Capt. Ed. For most of his years, this water served as his means of living. Crabs, oysters and fish were taken from the water and sold to put food on the table for his family.
It gave him pleasure, as well. Capt. Ed laughs as he remembers the steamboats that ventured near Fairhaven shores. Supplies were delivered from Baltimore by water, the fastest way to reach any place in those times.
Remembering this brings back fonder memories of his youth. When the creek froze, he would ice skate, which he claims was one of his greatest skills. Crandell also used his sleigh to cross Tracey's Creek to Deale, which had the only store in the area.
He traveled across the ice in more magnificent style in the Marnita. One of his most memorable boats and creations, the Marnita was his very own iceboat. With skates on the bottom and a sail on top, she took him sailing even in winter.
The winter also brought hard work for the Crandells. They were one of the few families in the area with ice houses on their property. Crandell and his father, Edwin G., carted 55 wagon loads of ice to their icehouse. Freshwater ice, cut off their pond, was saved for drinks. Saltwater ice was cut from the creek for refrigeration. The ice would last the family for the entire summer.
Before World War I, when ice was a summer rarity, even doctors would come to the Crandell homestead, Town Point Farm, for ice when patients were in need.
Until recent years, change came slowly to Town Point, where homes cling to the Bayside while the backside runs through fields to forest. "Up till the '50s if a car came, people [at home] would look out the window," the old captain recalls.
Even now, Town Point is a backwater among marinas, a place people come to get away from it all. And even now, Capt. Ed's home sustains him. "I come down here [to the marina] and enjoy the people," Crandell says.
Which may have something to do with his longevity.
Hvizda thinks she knows the secret behind Crandell's vibrancy: "He's the sweetest man in the world. Never has a bad word to say about anybody. I guess that's what has kept him alive."
Capt. Ed has his own ideas. "I worked hard and it didn't hurt me. I didn't mind working all day and night, sometimes. You need to take care of yourself, though. I have a drink or two every now and then, but I don't abuse myself."
Barbara Sturgell of Happy
Harbor
The Anchor of Deale
by Bill Lambrecht
If we could play back the footage of
our lives, Barbara Sturgell would freeze frame at the clip of a girl of 17
gripping two suitcases as she stands on Pennsylvania Avenue - looking lost.
That, she'd say, was a crossroads.
She had travelled from eastern Tennessee across the Appalachian Mountains on a train that was hurdling her toward her dreams. But first she had to find someone by the name of J. Edgar Hoover.
"Officer, can you point me toward the FBI?" Barbara Hamblin, awash in innocence, asked a policeman.
"Miss, you're standing right in front of it," the officer pointed. "See that sign that says Department of Justice?"
That 1950s' shot of a young woman reporting for her first day of her job is the opening scene, in black and white, of an American odyssey of hard work, strong family and generosity.
A recent shot, in panoramic color, is Barbara Sturgell surrounded by American flags on a perfect Chesapeake Bay morning at Happy Harbor Inn, her restaurant in Deale.
At this moment she's in the midst of a bustling set-up for a Memorial Day weekend. Family is backing her up: daughter Karen, one of five children, a popular bartender and a force at the restaurant, like her mom; son Bobby, a pilot and Naval Academy grad, who is hoisting shrubs and unloading ice at the waterfront restaurant, performing tasks that belie his skills. Three days earlier, Bobby, who trained as a fighter pilot, was ferrying 300 people back and forth to Munich over the north Atlantic in a Boeing 767 jumbo jet.
An early reveler finds Barbara Sturgell, who is momentarily seated at a picnic table on the restaurant dock. "What's the band here this weekend, anyway?" he asks. "Are you going to have the Rolling Stones?"
"That's right," she replies, not missing a beat. "Mick Jagger will be along shortly."
Truth be told, most of Barbara Sturgell's loyal and largely local clientele would rather eat a crabcake than see the Stones or anything foreign. They're happy with their long-neck beers amidst the working boats, content with reliable food that comes in big heaps. They only want change served up in tiny slices.
At landmark Happy Harbor, near the bridge at Route 261 and Rockhold Creek Road, change doesn't assault. Barbara Sturgell hasn't tried to transform it
into an island paradise or imported a "u" to make it Happy Harbour. The prices have been kept moderate and the menu down home when home is on
the Bay. One of the regulars complained a few years ago when they put in new
ceiling tiles.
photo M.L. Faunce Family Values: Barbara Sturgell on a catering job with helpers son Bobby, center, and husband Bill.
As a little girl, Barbara Sturgell really did walk five miles to school - a daily exercise that might work wonders today to curb hooliganism in schools. That was back in Claremont, Tenn., where they fought wars over unionizing the mines. Where black lung felled many of the men. And where the mountains could keep a girl from measuring her horizons.
She was the oldest of eight children in a generous, rock-solid family whose values she imported to the shores of Chesapeake Bay. Her mother, Dorothy, taught adult education up until a few weeks before her death last year.
Her mother also knew that her oldest daughter had too much talent and imagination to find happiness in coal country hollows. Barbara's grandfather, Matt, ran a combination theater-restaurant-grocery that hosted stage shows, as they called them. Little Barbara created her own stage, a flat spot at the foot of Jellico Mountain, to put on her own shows with rocks as both props and people.
She skipped two grades and, at age 16, left home for Knoxville to enroll at National Business College, where she would be recruited for work in Hoover's FBI. Soon, at her mother's urging, she would be leaving for Washington and a new life.
"You've got too much ambition and too many dreams to stay around here," her mother told her.
Happy Harbor didn't enter those dreams until the 1980s. Barbara Sturgell had settled in at the FBI as a correspondence typist back before computers and word processors. She met her husband, Bill, who also worked at the FBI, married in 1955 and started a family on High Place in northwest Washington.
Larger-than-life J. Edgar Hoover was known as an iron-fisted FBI head; only after his death was his private life scrutinized. Barbara Sturgell rose to become superintendent of the correspondence section, a trusted position, and had the job of delivering paperwork to Hoover's home on weekends.
"I think he was a great man," she says, recalling how she instructed her employees to work hard when Hoover came around and never to make eye contact with him.
After the births first of Sharon and then of Billy and Bobby, Barbara decided she'd reached another crossroads. She left the FBI, despite a personal letter from Hoover asking her to take three months off and reconsider.
Everybody has their story about how they ended up at the Bay. Bill Sturgell, who had worked in Miami, knew he liked the water, and soon Deale had a new family that would expand further when Karen and Jimmy came along. Barbara Sturgell was doing some book-keeping for Happy Harbor when she became the operating partner of the waterfront restaurant - despite her secret fear of water.
When she was about 10, a rambunctious uncle had tossed her into a swimming hole and told her to swim or perish. She almost did the latter, and to this day, she cares not the least for boating or the water. Bobby Sturgell may or may not be kidding when he says the kids have a plan to bring mom into a bit more harmony with the Bay: swimming lessons.
Anything to keep Barbara Sturgell healthy and hopping would get the vote of just about everyone who knows her. That includes members of her extended family "who come in here every day of their lives," she observes. If they're absent for a couple days, she's been known to get on the phone and find out why.
Barbara Sturgell is known as someone who makes those around her better people, even such notorious locals as the late Tommy 'Muskrat' Greene, the big-bellied, big-hearted Deale character who landed in the Guinness book for his eating vast quantities of oysters on the Happy Harbor dock. He came into Happy Harbor every day and called Barbara Sturgell "mom."
Her benevolence in the community and the region is well-known. You must search to find a charity she doesn't support: American Heart Association; the Cancer Crusade; her Cedar Grove Methodist Church; Deale Volunteer Fire Department; softball teams; lacrosse players; and on and on. She has been PTA president, and her awards include the Gene Hall Community Service Award, which recognizes community contributors in the tradition of the man who once ran Hall's Electric.
Sturgell helps people in ways they know and ways they don't: she gives scholarships and plane tickets to her workers; she 'adopts' families during the Christmas holidays, seeing to it that they have every thing from toys and food to a Christmas tree. She even gave ol' Muskrat - the late-Guiness record holding oyster and snail eater - a VCR. Back in Tennessee, decades after she left, she pays for fresh flowers at her old church every holiday.
Yet Barbara Sturgell is not a preachy sort, especially for a woman with strong views. She's involved in local Republican politics but she supports good Democrats, too, with money and votes. Recently, she's become a behind-the-scenes force in combating what she sees as unwise growth, letting her restaurant become a hatchery for efforts to forestall a widely unwanted supermarket with a plan to develop nearby.
But there are times when you can push somebody too far, even Barbara Sturgell. One such time occurred a few years ago when an Anne Arundel county inspector telephoned with a warning: Happy Harbor had too many signs and banners. They must be removed immediately - or else.
The offensive banners, Sturgell recalls, were two American flags. And if they weren't taken down, the inspector said, the county would see to that Sturgell's liquor license was yanked.
Soft-spoken Barbara Sturgell had a few words for the officious young woman, telling her unmistakably that those two American flags would remain right where they flew. She added the words below that round out a Chesapeake Bay success story, American-style.
"Come back here on Memorial Day," she said, "and you'll see 52 flags flying."
John Osborne of Tracey's
Landing
Digging dirt, living and breathing
plants, capitalizing on cactus
by Christopher Heagy
"I dig dirt" - he's not talking physically - exclaims John Osborne, the owner of Chesapeake Plants.
Osborne, 41, is a grower of rare, unusual and exotic plants, the supplier of the fantastic jade plant, cactus displays and Venus flytraps at the New Bay Times Birthday Bash and a man who loves growing plants.
"When people ask me what I do, I tell them, without a doubt, I am a plant man. They are my obsession. I live and breathe plants," Osborne testifies.
Find two brick pillars in Tracey's Landing and your journey begins. Bear right at the tobacco barns and drive until you know you're there. Don't worry. You'll know when you're there.
As your car squeezes past the trees that line the unimproved road that leads to the greenhouses of Chesapeake Plants, you'll hope you're in the right place. Once you reach the greenhouses of Chesapeake Plants, you'll realize you're in a place where life is lived a little differently.
You might think that a man who deals with cactus all day would have a prickly personality. Just the contrary. With his leather fedora and his orangish-red beard, John Osborne looks like a cross between a giant leprechaun and Indiana Jones. But this talkative fellow beams with the excitement and happiness of a man who thoroughly enjoys what he does.
"I haven't worked a day since I've owned this company. I have a good time," Osborne says.
"I make deliveries in Northern Virginia and D.C. I call it the "Land of the Frantic." I've got what these people want. I enjoy my job. I'm never trying to get any place I don't want to go. The most beautiful thing in the world is listening to the morning traffic report walking out my front door and taking my dog Buddy for a walk.
photo by Christopher Heagy John Osborne lives and breathes plants; his dog Buddy does the selling.
"I figure, I'm gonna be dead anyway. I might as well do something I enjoy."
An Annapolis native, Osborne moved as a teenager to Florida, where he developed an interest in tropical plants and began landscaping. His college major in computer science got him a job working in the electronic side of bank security. But he was never happy working with computers. He knew he loved nature and had continued to play with plants, so he decided to follow his passion.
In the 1980s, Osborne left Florida, traveled around the country and eventually settled back in Southern Maryland, which he considers home.
In the mid 1990s, working as a manager in the greenhouse division of Homestead Gardens, Osborne bumped into the opportunity to buy Chesapeake Plants. He jumped at it.
Chesapeake Plants is an exotic plant wholesaler, which, like its owner, does things a little differently. In corporate greenhouses, where many decisions are made by people who aren't even on site, pesticides are sprayed at regular intervals whether they're needed or not. Not in Osborne's greenhouses.
"With a little scouting and cleanliness the use of pesticides can be reduced," Osborne says. "It's just taking the time to look for things and realizing that it is not necessary to spray."
One of his best sources of information, he says, is "little old ladies. They tell me little things about different plants. Their knowledge is infinite. They have years of growing behind them. You can't pay for that. Time is the only thing you can't buy. It's gone."
Osborne sells to garden centers in Frederick, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, Pennsylvania, the District and the Eastern Shore. Unfortunately for us, his plants are not for sale at any garden centers in Anne Arundel or Calvert counties.
"My plants are a unique, high quality product," Osborne explains. "People can grow these plants cheaper, but they can't do it better. Customers may try somebody else, but they always come back."
Last October, John moved his greenhouses from St. Margaret's to his front yard in Tracey's Landing. He's spent much of the past year building his new greenhouses.
"Welcome to the second messiest greenhouse in the world," he jokes. "It might be the messiest but that would be a little embarrassing, so I always go with the second."
Within the year, Osborne plans to have both greenhouses running perfectly. In the next five years, he plans to open a retail garden center in Calvert or Anne Arundel County. He wants to sell unique and interesting plants in this area while continuing to distribute around the region.
"I'm trying to grow, but I'm doing it very slowly. I didn't think it would take this long to build these two greenhouses. I thought I would work and build and work and build. I didn't take time to eat or sleep or go to the bathroom into account."
Business has been good, and Osborne has picked up news accounts. The quality of his plants bring customers back, but the business side is not always his strength.
"I'm a plant dude. I'm not a salesman. My dog, Buddy, does most of the selling," he says. "I take him on deliveries. People come out to the van to see Buddy and wind up buying a bunch of plants. When I don't take Buddy, sometimes they don't even come to the van."
Osborne will sell by appointment - if you can catch him. "When customers come to the greenhouses I feel like they deserve my time to answer questions and talk to them about the plants. But I'm so busy I don't always have the time," he says. "So every now and then I give customers my time, grudgingly."
| Issue 22 |
Volume VII Number 22
June 3-9, 1999
New Bay Times
| Homepage |
| Back to Archives |
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http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x35219
This blog notes “it took 3 weeks for the restaurant to change the sign”, and also contains a close-up photo of the sign, noting that Anne Arundel is “red” and “some of the locals are redneck”. Elsewhere the blog indicates that an employee at Harbor noticed the sign had been changed during his shift on April 30 or “April 31”[sic]. A restaurant employee said that “because the restaurant was ‘very busy’ from an influx of charter boat customers, the management did not get the chance to remove the offensive words ‘coloreds’ and ‘fags’ for four or five days”.
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Wed May-24-06
03:20 PM |
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Harbor restaurant owner denies sign barred 'fags' and 'coloreds' |
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