Downtown Beaufort protest targets local website operator

A group of small-business owners and supporters walked the streets of downtown Beaufort on Friday to protest the owner of a popular local website, alleging unfair business practices and objectionable behavior.

Ken Reed, a local car dealership manager and owner of Maggie’s Pub in Habersham, secured a permit from the city of Beaufort for what he said was a peaceful protest against Lady’s Island resident Gene Brancho and Brancho’s website, www.eatsleepplaybeaufort.com and the associated Eat Sleep Play Beaufort Facebook page, which offers visitor information and marketing services to local businesses.

Eat Sleep Play Beaufort maintains an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau, with two noted complaints closed in the past two years related to products and service, the organization’s website shows.

State records show Reed registered Eat Sleep Play Beaufort LLC and similar names on Thursday. Reed said he grabbed the corporation names because the reservation had lapsed in 2016.

He said he helped organize the group to support business owners — particularly women — who might have otherwise been afraid to come forward.

Another march later in the afternoon included an escort from motorcyclists with the group “Bikers Against Bullies.”

Brancho dismissed the protest as Facebook gossip and said few of the growing number of cases referred to in a social media uprising against his actions this week had merit. He started the website in 2010, and the Eat Sleep Play Beaufort Facebook page has more than 70,000 likes.

The site promotes articles about local attractions and businesses, co-sponsors local events and hosts regular contests on its social media pages.

“I don’t know what to say — this shouldn’t happen, it’s a joke, it’s not even real, it’s gossip,” Brancho told a reporter Friday. “Nobody’s provided any proof to back anything.”

The group of protesters allege that Brancho failed to deliver work for multiple small businesses, costing them thousands of dollars collectively and worked without a contract to document the agreement. Multiple business owners said Brancho’s behavior became more aggressive and made them uncomfortable after the business relationship eroded.

LeAnn Logan, via her business Exclusively Your, LLC, sued Eat Sleep Play Beaufort and was awarded an $814 judgment in 2017 related to services she said weren’t adequately performed for the more than $1,000 she paid Brancho to advertise her business in 2016.

She was among the group protesting Friday, starting at about noon, with a small group walking down Carteret Street toward Bay Street holding specially printed signs. Joining Logan was Kelly Chelten, who worked briefly managing a social media page and providing video services for Brancho before starting Lowcountry Spotlight, a similar social media and marketing business. Amanda Patel, who said she was Brancho’s client when she owned the women’s clothing store Kalon and Company, also participated.

“Everybody knows what’s going on,” Logan said. “They don’t know how far it goes or how many people it’s affected, and they don’t know that people are finally sick of it to the point they are ready to stand up, show their face, let their voice be heard, and that’s what we need right now, more people behind us.”

Only one of the people participating in the protest said they had filed a police report. A reporter was unable to verify the existence of the report Friday.

Logan said she paid Brancho a total of $1,150 starting in May 2016 to market her business. She said he refused to have a written contract in favor of a verbal agreement for three posts a week on her business’s Facebook page, and to promote her business on Eat Sleep Play Beaufort, which currently has more than 70,000 followers. He also planned a series of giveaways to promote her business and for an ad to be posted on the Eat Sleep Play Beaufort website, she said.

She said he only delivered three Facebook posts to her business page, a giveaway months later on a different Facebook page and a homepage ad she said was formatted incorrectly. She sued Eat Sleep Play Beaufort after Brancho refused her request for a refund, she said.

Brancho said Logan had asked for help on her website and that she “pulled the plug on the project two weeks later.”

Then-Beaufort resident Stefanie Cavender sued Eat Sleep Play Beaufort and was awarded a $244 judgment in 2013, online court records show. Reached by phone Friday, Cavender said she wasn’t paid for three articles she wrote for Brancho or compensated for travel necessary to research the work.

She had asked for the agreement for her work in writing via emails and had the documentation for court, she said. Cavender said she heard about a year ago from other people looking for advice to recoup similar losses.

“He was pleasant upfront and pleasant when I worked for him,” Cavender said. “When it came to being paid, it was a problem.”

Patel posted about her experience with Eat Sleep Play Beaufort on Saturday without naming Brancho’s company. The post had garnered 300 comments and was shared 80 times.

Reed organized a meeting Thursday night at Maggie’s Pub to help plan the march and prepare written statements of business owners’ experience with Eat Sleep Play Beaufort.

In her statement, Chelten said that when she stopped working with Brancho to start her own business, “that is when the harassment started.” She said she’s afraid to go places alone for fear of encountering Brancho.

Brancho denied harassing Chelten.

“That’s preposterous, I’m two years away from 50,” he said. “If anything, when I see her, I go the other way. Because of things like this.”

Alyssa Johnson, with Lily and Lou Boutique, said she had a verbal agreement with Brancho for marketing services after opening her store in October 2015. She said she continued to give Brancho $250 each month for marketing services she wasn’t receiving because she felt embarrassed and “duped” and was afraid of her business being criticized by Brancho’s wide social media reach.

“I felt a little bullied into doing this, and I felt bullied into continuing on,” she said.

Brancho called the claims “nuts.”

Not every business owner criticized Brancho. Jennifer Wenk, an artist who owns Beaufort River Glass, said her experience with Brancho has been good. She said he has provided her business marketing services for more than three years without any problems.

“I pay it, he delivers it,” she said.

Angie Neale, who said she worked with Brancho as a volunteer at HELP of Beaufort, said she felt unsafe after an encounter downtown with Brancho. Brancho said Neale is among a group that has harassed him the past nine years but said he hasn’t filed legal action because the dispute is petty “social media garbage.”

This story was originally published August 17, 2018 at 5:42 PM.