Under pressure -- Q & A with Brett Hemphill

Brett Hemphill, a member of the Commodores Club in the Newport Harbor

Area Chamber of Commerce, resigned as chairman of the Christmas Boat

Parade last week after receiving a threat to his Costa Mesa business,

Hemphill’s Rugs & Carpets. Many of those criticizing the Commodores’

decision to shorten future parades’ routes and the duration live in areas

being cut from the route.

On Wednesday, the longtime Newport Beach resident sat down with

Assistant City Editor James Meier at Hemphill’s Rugs & Carpets to discuss

the recent events.

Q: Can you elaborate on the threat made toward your business?

A: There’s a group of individuals that live in the Lido Isle/Lido

Peninsula area by the Cannery that are very vocal about changes to next

year’s boat parade.

One individual in particular did a verbal threat, saying he was

building a house and he wasn’t going to patronize my business because I

was chairman of the boat parade and he was going to tell his friends and

neighbors also not to purchase floor covering from us. I tried to explain

to him that it was a volunteer position and the two weren’t even

correlated, and he couldn’t get that through his head.

In fact, he called me again [Tuesday]. I couldn’t believe it. And I

said “We’re not going to go through this again. I can’t help you

anymore.”

Q: Do you get much of your business from Newport Beach?

A: Yeah. Most of our business is Newport, Laguna Beach, Huntington

Beach. But we’ve done stuff in L.A., the Beverly Hills Hotel and stuff

like that.

Q: Before the threat, what did being the parade’s chair mean to you?

A: Oh, I had a great time doing it. I’ve been involved in the parade

the last five years. This was my second year as chair. Prior to that, I

was chairman of parade control, which helps with organizing the U.S.

Coast Guard, Coast Guard Auxiliary and harbor patrol in terms of getting

the parade to flow smoothly and helping the skippers understand the

format of the parade. It’s great. I love going out there and helping with

that part. It’s my favorite part of the whole parade -- organizing the

flow.

Q: And even though you’ve resigned as chair, you’ll still be involved

with this year’s parade, right?

A: Yeah, I just had to get my name out of the spotlight.

Q: Obviously the decision to shorten the parade’s route and the amount

of days it runs was not yours alone.

A: It’s a committee decision, a chamber decision, and we sent out a

questionnaire last winter to business owners, restaurants, boat charters,

anyone who was affected by the parade, residents and, most importantly,

guys who were past and current participants with their boats in the

parade.

Those are the guys that really make the parade happen. If you take

everything out of it, we have to listen to them first and foremost. Those

guys leave their work at about 4 in the afternoon -- if they work in

L.A., they have to leave earlier than that -- come down and organize --

if he’s having a party that night -- work with caterers, get the boat

ready to go. From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. is pretty much only half of the deal.

Then he has to take his boat home, clean it up and get in his car and

drive home. To do this seven nights in a row is pretty brutal.

And I have customers -- we do a lot of boat installations -- and I go

up to them and ask them if they’re going to be in the boat parade this

year. They say no. “Why not?” “It’s too long.” Every single one of them

who wasn’t in the parade said it was too long and too much of a

commitment.

Q: What is the typical duration of the parade?

A: It’s supposed to start at 6:30 and be over by 8:30. It’s a little

longer than that. We slowed down the parade two years ago to reduce the

number of gaps that occur. The gaps occur because every time you turn a

corner, that’s where the gap ends up resulting. So, it typically ends at

8:45 unless it gets bogged down in a lot of boat traffic, and then it can

end after 9. The new schedule should knock about a half-hour off it.

On top of that, another problem we had was at the beginning of the

parade there’d be, let’s say, 100 boats. By the time we’d take another

count down by the Balboa Yacht Club, oftentimes, half the parade would be

missing. They cut out and go home. It’s just too long.

Q: What right, if any, do you think a longtime homeowner along the

current parade route has to seeing that parade?

A: Well, they don’t really pay for it. It’s free. You know, I don’t

really think necessarily there is a right. It’s been a tradition, but

things have to change. Our lifestyles have all changed. Everybody’s

busier. They work more. So you have to make some compromises. And we

tried not to compromise any businesses. You know, we are the [Newport

Harbor Area] Chamber of Commerce, so you have to promote business, so

yacht clubs and restaurants weren’t cut out of the parade.

There was hope that there are some tall, high-rise towers where this

route is getting cut short and because they’re elevated and about half of

them look out toward that channel, if you’re elevated, you can see down

the channel, so they’ll still have a view. And there’s some public

viewing areas in that vicinity as well.

Q: What considerations went into that compromise and could it have

been worse on the homeowners along the route?

A: I don’t know. Just because you have waterfront property -- the

parade route doesn’t cover the back half of Linda Isle, the back half of

Harbor Island doesn’t have it in front of their homes and Harbor Island

Drive. So there’s a lot of waterfront property that is not feasible

because of the size of the boats.

And, actually, it’s a little tougher in certain areas to get the

parade through and Lido Channel is a little tough when you get the larger

boats going through. And I understand it’s been going along there

forever, but times change and, unfortunately, if we’re going to have a

successful parade, I think we need to listen to the boat owners that

participate in the parade.

Q: What more would you like to say to anyone who would issue such a

threat to you or anyone in your position?

A: Well, you know, it isn’t just this issue. It’s any type of

volunteer organization where people are putting their time out, taking

time away from their families and businesses to help a community event or

whatever event it might be. These people, to my knowledge, aren’t

involved with this parade and maybe rather than screaming and yelling,

they should volunteer to help do something about it.

The community this year, with the questionnaire and everything -- I

would say a lot of them have put in 90 hours of time before the parade

has even started. It’s a lot of work to then have someone just criticize

the decision that was based on some facts and some analysis. It’s not

like we just pulled it out of the sky and said this is what we’re doing.

There were reasons for it.

Q: Are you going to miss it?

A: Yeah, I enjoyed doing it. I would have done it again next year.

These guys came into our organizational meeting -- there were 15 to 20 of

this group -- about parade control and we simply said “This is not even

for discussion right now. We’re planning this year’s parade. We’re not

worried about next year. We’ll have a meeting in February, and we’ll

explain our decisions, and we’ll listen to your comments.” So, we’ve

offered a venue for them to discuss the issue, but our point is pretty

firm. We spent a lot of time analyzing this.

Q: Would you become chair again?

A: Yeah. I think after the dust settles, I’d do it again. I don’t

regret doing it. I just regret -- and it’s just a small percentage of

people -- but I think it’s terrible that somebody who’s not totally

involved in the decision-making, the organization and has little

knowledge of the parade other than it going by their home can criticize

in such an ugly manner the work that volunteers do. And that would be

true for any volunteer operation.

BIO

Name: Brett Hemphill

Age: 35

Residence: Newport Beach; all but six years of his life here

Occupation: Owner of Hemphill Rugs & Carpets on 17th Street in Costa

Mesa since 1995

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business with an emphasis in

entrepreneurship from USC; Corona del Mar High School graduate

Family: Wife of five years Cherie, father Bryan, mother Mary Ann and

brother Greg

Community Involvement: Commodores Club, which also organizes the

sandcastle contest, scholarship awards breakfast for Corona del Mar and

Newport Harbor high school students, athletic awards, Flight of the

Lasers, arrival party for Mr. Irrelevant Week; and Balboa Yacht Club

Hobbies: Sailing and boating, cars