News
Next stop on this tour is uncertainty
Published Thursday, September 11, 2008
by Erica Singleton, For The Charlotte Post
Juan Whipple says he’s been frustrated for a long time.
The owner and operator of Queen City Tours, since 1993, Whipple alleges Visit Charlotte, formerly known as the Charlotte Convention and Visitors Bureau, unfairly terminated his membership and has shown racial prejudice against him and his company.
“I’ve been a member on and off for 14 years,” Whipple said. “I’ve never felt they were fair.”
Whipple offers tours around the Charlotte through his company, Queen City Tours, including daily city and African American Heritage tours, a NASCAR shuttle, and church and museum trips. In 2007, he complained to Visit Charlotte that he wasn’t being promoted through the agency, based on a complaint he received from a customer.
According to a Jan. 13 email, Whipple wrote Visit Charlotte Executive Director Mike Butts, stating, “I have once again received a complaint concerning your visitor information staff. On...Friday January 12, 2007], we received a call... [asking] if we were members of Visit Charlotte. When told yes, [it was] stated that our company was not mentioned [during an inquiry] about a Charlotte city tour. In addition, [we were told] that your staff member only mentioned that “the Trolley gives tours but they are closed,” and they also mentioned another company that is out of business.”
The email went on to mention a similar such incident from 2006, and Whipple’s disappointment at Visit Charlotte for not providing accurate information. In response, Butts wrote Whipple on Jan. 19, “From your communication last summer and again with your email it is apparent that you are not satisfied with your relationship with Visit Charlotte. I must also say that your process for doing business has also made it very difficult for our service people... Since last summer our services team has documented 29 complaints and I have just read through them again.... I have also researched that your company is not licensed with the city’s ‘vehicle for hire’ program. As an agent of the city it is not responsible for us to ignore that requirement.”
Butts went on to explain that Whipple’s partnership dues would be credited to his bank account, and he would be removed from the website, due to Whipple’s level of dissatisfaction and the number of complaints received about his business.
“They’d never mentioned that they had received complaints before,” explained Whipple, “the email was the first time I’d heard about it.”
In response, Whipple requested the information about the complaints he was told Visit Charlotte received, and was sent pages of documented complaints beginning June 26, 2006 through Jan. 9, 2007. The documented information, sent to him by Cameron Furr of Grier, Furr, & Crisp Attorneys at Law, ranged from keeping track of when Queen City Tours was referred to customers who called, to complaints from customers about unreturned phone calls and “nasty or rude” treatment by phone once a call was taken. Whipple feels these pages of so-called complaints that he was never told about display the unfair treatment he has received over the years.
“Do they keep notes on other businesses?” asked Whipple? “They didn’t explain they would be doing this when I joined. I paid to be a member, they should be promoting me. They’re not the Better Business Bureau; I didn’t join them to gather complaints.”
Cameron Furr of Grier, Furr & Crisp explained, “It is not the companies policy to keep complaints, however, according to Mike Butts, in this case, they had gotten a number of complaints, so he asked his employees to keep a record of them. They do not have a standard file of complaints, because they don’t get that many, usually.”
Janet Hart of the Better Business Bureau of Southern Piedmont explained that Visit Charlotte has been a member since 1965 and has had zero complaints brought against them. They are a member in good standing, and have a satisfactory rating. Queen City Tours was a member from 2002 to 2005 before dropping their membership. They have only had one complaint brought against them in the last 36 months, which was closed as resolved. Whipple’s allegations of racial prejudice would not be handled by the BBB, because according to Hart it is under the category of contractor/ subcontractor complaints and the BBB does not handle contractor/subcontractor disputes.
“The nature of the complaint is out of our purview,” said Hart.
Six months after Whipple’s email exchange with Butts, Whipple was pulled over, for the first time, by CMPD and fined $600 while conducting a tour, for what he felt were, “for violations that were not related to safety or tour companies.” However, just as Butts had mentioned Whipple did not have a Passenger Vehicle for Hire permit, and according to Burhan Al-Shaikh of CMPD’s Passenger Vehicle for Hire Office, this citation and fine are standard for operators not complying with the City Ordinance.
“In section 22-61 of the ordinance it states no person shall operate any passenger vehicle for hire in the city without first having obtained a company operating certificate authorizing the operation of such business,” explained Al-Shaikh. “If they are stopped and they don’t have a certificate they will be cited at least $600, if they don’t have the permit.”
Though Whipple felt his fine was excessive and was a direct result of Butts reporting him, Al-Shaikh explained that the office looks for companies that operate vehicles with 15 passengers or fewer within the city that don’t have the certificate, and make an effort to contact them.
“We check out advertisements, check websites, look on Yahoo, the phone book, and yes receive letters regarding companies operating within Charlotte City Limits,” explained Al-Shaikh. “If someone is in violation of the City Ordinance, we will waive the citation if they come in to the office, and comply by obtaining the permit.”
Whipple says he currently has federal permits, with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which negates his need to obtain the Vehicle for Hire certificate, but according to CMPD, Businesses must comply with the city as well as State and Federal regulations.
It’s vehicle for hire compliance that compelled Whipple to make these allegations. On July 15, 2008, Visit Charlotte recommended C-Charlotte Tours to Fort Mill resident Inetta Justice, stating that was, “The only tour company that we recommend.”
When Justice contacted the Passenger Vehicle for Hire office, she was informed that C-Charlotte Tours owner Gary Brigman did not have an operating certificate.
As is their policy, the office has since contacted C-Charlotte Tours, and they received their permit on August 27, 2008, but the fact that one company without one was terminated from Visit Charlotte and other recommended left a bad taste in Whipple’s mouth.
“Now I ask the obvious question,” stated Whipple, “How is this white man allowed to operate unabated when myself — a black man - [was] harassed by...the police, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Department, the Highway Patrol, and the North Carolina Attorney General.”
Cameron Furr, General Counsel for Visit Charlotte stated that Visit Charlotte was not aware that C-Charlotte tours did not have a Vehicle for Hire license until recently. The Better Business Bureau also has no record for a company under that name.
“I never received information about complaints from Melvin Tennant (former CEO of Visit Charlotte or any other past directors,” said Whipple.
When asked if he would ever try to join Visit Charlotte again, Whipple was doubtful.
“If Mike Butts is not there, I may try again,” he added. “I need to be told they will be fair. I need to be told that if I pay my dues, they will do what their website says.”
Whipple insists he’s not the only Charlotte business owner who feels this way, just the only one who has ever come forward. “I’m hoping this will help other businesses who are afraid to speak up about these issues.”
