Oh, and I assume the Wine Cellar had a written disclaimer that you were being videotaped and privacy rules posted.
Not sure what their rules are, or what may be posted. I’ll bet there’s nothing about the CCTV. I’m sure they feel it’s well within their rights to keep track of their property w/o having to inform anyone they’re being “filmed”.
Big +1. It’s as though she went out of her way to vindicate the guy for his comments.
Doesn’t everyone wish they had a friend like Joel? 
Can’t wait till the owner chimes in here!!
LOL! Despite this recent incident, I honestly don’t believe he gives a crap. We’re not talking about Ray Walker here. 
I believe Steve (i.e. owner) is a lawyer, or at least has a J.D. Notwithstanding that, I’d like to know the answer(s) to those questions as well. He’s always seemed to me to radiate anger and condescension; sad, really.
![[winner.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/07ec25c9fd71159fe15d7f1ba5fad64e91238d0e.gif "winner"){kind=small}
Boy, this place has a lot of bad Yelp reviews!
That keeps the eyes behind the cctv camera very busy!
Certainly not trying to play Devil’s advocate here and I am not in the (commercial) wine business or storage industry, but doesn’t a private owner of a private company have every right to refuse service to someone who has upset them? I know that it is not a good business decision and with the age of social media, probably a very bad idea, but still within his rights. If I ran a restaurant or retail shop and a customer offended me, I would ask them to leave as well. I kind of admire him for standing his ground, for good or bad.
Of course they do, Mark (at least up to some legal point). Just as we have the right to admonish the owner(s) for poor and roughshod handling of the situation. It’s really difficult for me to believe they didn’t think this out before going down that path.
And to your analogy of the restaurant, if you threw a party at the restaurant, would you be upset if the owner came in while the party was going on and asked one of YOUR guests to leave? Certainly ownership has privileges, but personally I don’t think it automatically extends to screening or censoring my guest list.
Oh no, of course you are correct in that you should leave too if one of your guests was forced to. I think you made the right decision and should no longer supply business to an owner that would do this. I’m not saying anyone should act like an ass, just that they have the right to if they want.
This may be purely academic, in which case feel free to ignore me lest I come across as rude and insufferable (trust me, that would not be the first time), but does the right of an owner of a private company to kick someone out reside in his being the owner of the company or in his hurt feelings? It seems to me that the right resides in his being the owner, not in his hurt feelings. If, for example, one of the guests hurt the feelings of another guest, the offended party would not have the right to kick out the offender — right? So if this is the case, then that means that the owner of a private company can kick anyone out for whatever reason, hurt feelings or not. He may kick someone out just because he dislikes a person’s looks. That may be a dumb thing to do, but he certainly has the right as the owner.
What right, then, does the customer have? Does the customer have a right to invite a guest to the private company? Or does the owner always reserve the right to veto the customer’s right, if the customer does indeed have that right.
This whole story is somewhat a parable about ex-customer, customer, and owner, their perceptions of their rights, as well as their perceptions of the way the others should have acted. Legally, who is correct? I’m not competent to give an authoritative opinion (although I think it may be a question with interesting aspects). But, I think you’re asking about the court of public opinion. In my opinion, I don’t think anyone in the story was outside their “rights”. As an owner, I would not have asked a group to leave unless it was convening frequently, included mostly non-customers, and was impeding the ability of my customers to use my facilities. OTOH, if I were a former customer and had posted a Yelp review for a competitor that described the owner of this facility as insufferable as part of recommending the competitor, I’d feel rather awkward enjoying the hospitality of the facility I previously used. I completely understand why you and the customer(s) who hosted the event were unhappy and want to advertise your treatment. Yet, while the owners’ response was ill-advised and not what I would have done, I’m not entirely surprised by it. Fortunately, there is an alternative facility that welcomes your events.
-Al
Thoroughly enjoyable breakdown Al.
Plus any time you can drop the word parable without seeming out of place, you’re flying on a pretty high plane.
As a WCC customer I can say that they do a good job at their core business, which is temp controlled wine storage, and in accepting/receiving deliveries for their clients. However, no one really wants to taste there any more, and maybe that’s kind of how the owners have grown to prefer it.
Well distilled, Al (sorry about the pun). Interesting point, Robert. I’m sure the rental rooms or tasting facilities offered a chance for storage business to distinguish themselves from each other. As you suggest, these facilities bring with them a larger management problem. Maybe, just maybe, had management concentrated on “their core business” of storage, this would not have been an issue at all.
i noticed that legend cellar’s webpage is saying that they are priced lower than competitors?
what’s the price structure over at legend? individual lockers as well?
I agree with Al, for the most part, but as a business owner, my take is that the opportunity given them with an individual who slammed them on Yelp was handled in the opposite manner in which is should have been. Personally, I would have gone out of my way to show that he was wrong in his opinion, and work to change his mind, not feed the fire as they had. This reaction caused further negativity on Yelp, and now there’s a lengthy discussion here which already appears on page 3 for Google searches on ‘Wine Cellar Club Irvine’ - this is not good, so as a business owner, the best decision to make is the one that doesn’t harm your business.
I store at WCC and have never had an issue with either owners. Though I don’t hang out and do tastings there, I just store there and use it as a shipping address. Before I moved my cellar to WCC (From Pasadena) about 5(?) years ago I compared WCC and Legends. At that time the price difference wasn’t noticeably different, but I preferred the security and tracking that WCC had to which I wasn’t impressed with at that time with Legends. As to prices now, I have no idea.