Breaux Bridge Chamber, merchants at odds over Citywide Garage Sale

Breaux Bridge – The Breaux Bridge Area Chamber of Commerce says their annual fund-raiser, the Citywide Garage Sale, has gotten too big for Veterans Park downtown and they want to expand to Parc Hardy.

Downtown merchants, most of whom are not members of the Chamber, feel the move will take much-needed business away from them.

“It’s not going to happen – or if it does happen, it’ll be after one hell of a fight,” said Johnny Raymond, one of the owners of Buck and Johnny’s Pizzeria downtown.

He said the group will take their grievances to the Breaux Bridge City Council at its July meeting.

Lynn Roy, chairman of the Chamber’s Citywide Committee, said the event is still a citywide event, with local merchants joining hundreds of private yard sales to attract out-of-town shoppers. But the flea market part of it, which is how the Chamber makes its money, has grown too big for Veterans Parks.

“We’re not moving to Parc Hardy, we’re expanding to Parc Hardy,” she said. “There will still be vendors in the park downtown.”

She said there will be signs at the big park on Rees Street reminding visitors to shop in the historic downtown, and the Chamber will invest more money in out-of-state advertising.

Raymond said the downtown merchants view the prospect of a large flea market at Parc Hardy as a distraction from downtown businesses.

“The reason they’re doing this is for the Chamber to make more money so they can pay more salaries or something,” he said.

Roy said another problem with packing more vendors into Veterans Park is the upcoming renovation of the parish library and an major election scheduled at the same time as the garage sale in 2014. The park is on Berard Street in the same block as the library and the LSU AgCenter building, which serves as a polling place.

Raymond said the larger issue is that there is already an existing chasm between the Chamber and the downtown merchants.

The Citywide Garage Sale is held the first weekend in October.