For newly opened ‘Garlic,’ news of racial attack stinks for business

Eatery mulls recourse against media outlets

By Franci Richardson Ellement

Tom LaGumina’s dream restaurant had been open for business only 95 days when TV crews pulled into the parking lot of The Garlic Italian Country Grille to film patrons trudging over the site of a bloody racial attack that took place a few hours after the eatery closed.

“It’s taken its toll,” sighs LaGumina. “Can I recover from it? I don’t know. There is definitely a stigma attached to this thing.”

The future of The Garlic, which took LaGumina’s life savings to open, is hanging in the balance after a black man from Jamaica Plain was attacked near the Marshfield restaurant by nearly a dozen white people in the early hours of June 12. The brawl had started at a house party down the street and ended with people running through The Garlic’s parking lot.

A well-rated Italian dinner spot that serves mid-priced, Tuscan-style dishes, the restaurant had been doing as well as could be expected in a slumped economy.

But after a police report and, subsequently, the print and television media identified The Garlic as the spot where the attack occurred, LaGumina was left weighing legal action against the media - and his chances of weathering the storm.

“The major battle is that it’s a real tough economy,” LaGumina says. “Had I known I was opening a restaurant in this economy, it’s like shoveling against the tide. And then this happens, and I do no business for a week because no one wants to come near the place.”

Public relations spinster George Regan, of Regan Communications in Boston, says LaGumina suffered a PR nightmare that is difficult to correct.

“Unfortunately, there are two victims,” Regan says. “There is the person who is hurt and the owner. It happens all the time.”

In this instance, the racial attack occurred just past midnight, when guests at a nearby party spewed racial epithets at two black men and started a fight that spilled into the street near The Garlic. Witnesses said a dozen men and women stabbed and then beat and kicked Tizaya Robinson nearly unconscious while yelling racial slurs, according to the police report.

Robinson told police in an interview at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth later that morning that “he was assaulted because of his race in front of the Garlic Restaurant in Marshfield.” The report continued: “Mr. Robinson estimates he was hit over the head with five bottles. He was struck with a stick on the shoulder, stabbed in both arms and the left leg.”

Police made six references to The Garlic in a four-page report on file at Plymouth District Court. The report identifies the restaurant’s parking lot as the site where police found a pool of blood, a bloody towel and blood on a fence owned by the restaurant.

Steve Hartin, owner of Video Security Experts of Quincy, saw the surveillance tapes from the video system he installed for LaGumina. Hartin says that the tapes show fighting in the street, but not on the property of the Garlic.

“It happened out in the street,” Hartin says. “Some kids ran on the front lawn.”

So, when newspapers such as the Patriot Ledger, Boston Herald and The Boston Globe, as well as a variety of TV news stations, used The Garlic to answer the question of “where” the event took place in their reports, the reputation of the new business was instantly marred by negative association, says LaGumina.

“They made it seem like we’re a bunch of drunken sailors, and it initiated here and just rolled out the front door,” the owner says. “We had nothing to do with that.”

LaGumina consulted his attorney, Robert Galvin of Duxbury, who reminded him that the pockets of TV stations and newspapers are deeper than his. The best recourse, it seemed, was for LaGumina to stop advertising in his hometown newspaper, the Duxbury Clipper.

“We think the best thing for the restaurant is to let it die,” says Galvin. “There’s nothing else that can be done other than to tell the truth that The Garlic had nothing to do with it.”

But Albert A. DeNapoli, a Boston business attorney who sits on the board of directors of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, says there may be more LaGumina can do.

LaGumina’s first order of business, he says, should be to seek a retraction or correction with the same level of publicity that the media used to report the attack. But DeNapoli admits the likelihood of this actually happening is small.

And while he acknowledges that it would be difficult for LaGumina to prove that he lost a specific amount of money as a result of the attack, DeNapoli says filing a lawsuit against the offending media outlets might get LaGumina the attention he needs.

“If he had the cash and desire, maybe [initiating a lawsuit] would give him the publicity he’s not going to otherwise get from the media,” says DeNapoli. “He could make a statement that it happened, but that it was way after the restaurant closed.”

DeNapoli adds: “He may want to show the public that he’s trying to make a point as to the reputation of his restaurant. He may say, ‘I want my voice being heard in this. No one else is giving me an opportunity, so the courts will.’”

Not only did he have nothing to do with the incident, LaGumina was praised by the Board of Selectmen for turning over to police the surveillance tapes, which prosecutors reportedly plan to use at trial for the seven defendants who have been arrested in connection with the crime.

LaGumina was even heralded as Citizen of the Week by the selectmen.

“This had nothing to do with The Garlic restaurant,” said Marshfield Police Chief William P. Sullivan. “The restaurant had closed hours earlier.”

Sullivan refused comment on the police report.

Meanwhile, PR flak Regan advises that LaGumina enlist his friends in town to help boost his image.

“It’s almost like a word-of-mouth-campaign,” Regan says. “He needs support from his friends.”

The Garlic did receive some much-needed support in the July issue of South Shore Living, which made the following prediction: “Be sure to arrive early because once word gets out about this new hot spot, you will surely be in for a long wait.”

LaGumina can only hope that prediction comes true. {EXA}

Franci Richardson Ellement is a freelance reporter. She can be contacted at  richardsonfranci at hotmail.com.