The Fire Garden

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.Mr*** is being far less than honest in his response to my complaintHe is resorting to defamation of character and slander which I will address through a separate process I am not questioning his initial rate, or the additional amounts we paid for parking or the additional we paid and negotiated for extra bar time and rehearsal dinner*** is attempting to make it sound like I was a difficult clientPerhaps he is not used to the level of professionalism we asked for and that my wedding coordinator requiredWhen doing business with a company and in planning a wedding, the number of conversations held to insure a favorable outcome should not be countedWedding planning requires a significant amount of effort and the mere fact that *** is counting the number of times we communicated with him is extremely less than professional. I will address ***'s statements one at a time.I paid for every exception that we asked of ***I paid for the additional bar time, the additional music time, the additional parking, the rehearsalHe did not do us any favors, we paid exactly and fully what he asked of usHe did not extend us any use of the property that we did not purchase. We are not contending that the guests had a good time or that it's a pretty venueThe guests had nothing to do with costs, negotiations or final depositsThe venue is nice, but again, it has nothing to do with the complaint *** hampers delivery and pick up by insisting on keeping the gates closed due to his dogsHis dogs could easily be leashed or put awayThere were numerous times when a vendor would call me from the gate and indicate that they had been waiting and couldn't get on the premises due to the fact that the gate was closedI asked *** about leaving the gate open and he said that he could not because of his dogs. Whenever a vendor would call, I would have to locate *** and then he would have to walk to the gate which was approximately feet or more (by my measurement and might not be accurate) and then manually open or close the gateThis process repeated itself numerous times during pick up and delivery which took time away from our "allotted" timesThis is a built in mechanism to impede the amount of time we are given to be able to effectively set up and tear downDogs need to be restrained and gates need to be left open. Also, *** claims that he had to wait for a vendor on Sunday for clean-up. However, I have text confirmation from that vendor indicating that they were onsite at 10:am on Sunday and no one would answer the gate, so they left(See attachment)I arrived a few minutes after 10:am on Sunday and had to call and honk for several moments before *** answered the gate(Over witnesses available and phone records will be provided)*** appeared at the gate disheveled and without a shirt on and I even asked him of he had perhaps oversleptOver people worked methodically to leave the place spotless, there were no plastic bags blowing around, no cigarette buttsMrs*** *** and Mrs*** *** both walked the premises twice and gathered every single cigarette butt and piece of trash*** also likes to contend that a young woman suffered a miscarriage in his bathroomShe did not and that is a horrible thing to even sayThe bridesmaids and his one helper assisted her during a time that she was just ill prepared fprThere was no mess left and quite an insensitive and rude thing for *** to bring upVery much a last ditch attempt to say something in his defenseAt clean up, I informed *** that I was very uncomfortable with his lack of willingness to do a walk through with meI asked him TWICE and he finally conceded to do a semi-walkthrough with me where he barely glanced around and said in front of several witnesses, "Looks good."As a military spouse of years, I have done numerous walk through inspections and know what my legal rights areHe was acting completely suspicious and I knew that he would try to cash the check before we had any conversation on the matterBy law, he is required to inform me of damages or issues and give me hours to correct anything before attempting to cash my checkI knew that he would not do this and would just try to cash it despite leaving the place spotlessAs it turns out, he did indeed try to cash the check before he ever even contacted me regarding so called damagesI am attaching the photographs which, in my opinion and the opinion of over witnesses whose names I can provide, are completely staged. I put a stop payment on the security deposit check simply by intuition and suspicion and sadly, that was shown 100% to be the right moveHis actions were illegal and showed a huge lack of integrityEven during the negotiation period, he refused communication on the matter with me despite me asking several times on the status of my refund and even offering to go and pick it up myselfHe then informed me that he would be returning my entire deposit when I questioned his actions but he did indeed try to cash the check prior to ANY discussions with usI was willing to let this issue go and have him return my deposit check, but after finding out that he attempted to cash it almost immediately after the wedding without discussing it with us, my husband and I determined that we should warn the public and any future consumers about his business methodsThe correct and legal procedure is to discuss any perceived damage with the client, give them hours to correct the issues and then determine the security damage*** bypassed all of that I did indeed drop a check at his venue and had to cancel a series of three checksThis can be verified by Ms*** *** who had to write a check for me to a vendor because it happenedI IMMEDIATELY notified *** and wrote him a replacement check plus a fee for any inconvenienceI sent this with USPS tracking and it can be confirmed that it was delivered directly to ***'s mailbox with certified tracking *** was enjoying our alcohol and drinking the entire eventWe don't have a problem with this, but perhaps as the host and owner of the venue, he should refrain. We do believe that he was hungover the following day and that is likely why he struggled to effectively answer the gateThe parking and guest list were huge issues*** initially said that he would provide MARINE security guards which was a big selling point to us because my husband is a retired MarineHe said two Marines, and we gor one guy who could barely speak EnglishI have a text message from *** where I voiced my concerns about the security and parking issue and he assured me that it would be handledIt was notThe *** and the *** families both had pre-printed parking passesfor *** and for ***Never did I state that only my family would be allowed inside the gateWe had a long and extensive conversation with the guard to let him know that certain members on my side had medical mobility issues and would need to park along the fence line closest to the entranceOne of them had just had back surgery and was forced to park on the streetI stated that since we were paying for the venue, we would decide who parked inside the gates, for the grooms family and for the brides NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE who had parking passes was permitted to park inside the gateThe security guard was also supposed to check the names on the master list we providedNot one single name was checked and everyone was allowed in without verification that they were even on the guest listThis is a direct violation of the contract *** might not be used to an event of our caliber and we trusted him to make sure things would go smoothlyHe was ill prepared and let several things fall through the cracks, acted with lack of integrity and violated the terms of our contract especially in regards to adequate acess to property, parking and securing the guest list Furthermore, his comments about my daughter and son - in - law saying rude things about me are simply not true and just attempts to defame my character by calling namesMr*** *** and Mrs*** *** have provided writtens atements that they never said such thingsAlso, no "friends" of mine said rude things about meIt's simply defamation of character Lastly, I would like to request verification that *** actually has a food service permit and a permit to serve alcohol on the premisesPlease see my attachmentsAgain, requesting a partial refund of due to the severe parking mishap, difficulties suffered by my disabled guests who were not honored with parking passes, lack of assess for vendors delivery and pick up, lack of adherence to master guest list which may have resulted in uninvited guests.
*** ***

July 29th ***’s daughter *** and son in-law *** were married in my gardenMy rate is $3,for hours of use on the day of the wedding, hours of set up the day before and hours of cleanup the next day for a total of hoursPlus optional $for hour Rehearsal time, which they
optfor.They wanted more time on the night of the wedding so we agreed they could use the place for an additional hours for an extra $This whole agreement of time is listed in our contract.I provide a small parking lot for approximately carsAdditional parking is provided by my neighbor in a separate property for $100.On the day of the wedding *** demanding that mainly her side of the family be able to park in my small lot because she was ‘paying for all of it’Not only that, she also wanted her family to park in a specific area of this lotBecause none of her family showed up at the same time and cars need to be double parked in order to all fit, and some of the groom's family also parked in the lot, this resulted in some of her family needing to park outside of my property.I provide a security guard to manage the parking areaUnfortunately on this particular day it was the security guards first day on the job.In addition to ***s challenging requests, the new security guard did not handle the confusion as proficiently as he could have.I would like to state here that in the months from the time the couple and *** first signed the contract, *** *** sent me emails and 50+ text messages all with specific requests or complaintsNever in all the years I have allowed people to have weddings on my property have I gone to such extents to try to make a customer happyNevertheless, I gave in to every request of hers to the best of my ability.In the contract I ask for a $deposit for cleaning, damage and/or additional costs that would be incurred, specifically going past the allotted hours to be charged at $per half hour.Our agreement as I listed above was for a total of hours, which is more than enough time to set-up, breakdown and enjoy a very nice spacious eventOn the day of set up July 28th the wedding planner and her helper took an additional hour to set up.The day of the event everything went fineAs always I received many compliments from the guests and the couple were extremely happyNo issues there whatsoever*** even wrote a review where, while she complained about the parking, she admit that everyone had a good time and it was a beautiful eventCleis generally from 10am to 12pm - Stated clearly in the contract, this is also the time that the rental companies need to come pick up their equipment, tables, chairs, etcThe following day the group showed up to do their cleat 10:and stayed until 12:30pmHowever the rental company didn't show up until 3:45pm rendering me hostage, unable to leave my home until they were gone at 4:So that’s an additional hours I had to waitIf clients request that vendors be able to come at a different time of day I’m always willing to work with them however there was no prior communication about this.The cle- I have photographs taken after they were goneThere was plastic bags blowing around, broken glass, vomit on my plants, many cigarette buds and blood on my bathroom floor which was cleaned by my staff.I deposited her security deposit on that Monday July 31stThen I wrote to her explaining that I would be returning $of her money and explained the reasons I would be keeping $I can provide Revdex.com with this emailSo that was $for hours extra use and $for additional cleanupIn response to my email she sent me a text complaining that she had been calling and texting me all of Sunday morning to get into the property, however my phone does not show any proof of her calls or texts on Sunday morning.She writes that ‘it took her hours to cleanup because I opened the gate for her at 10:07am’I have no idea how this makes any sense.On August 1st Tuesday She threaten to take me to court unless she got her whole security deposit backAt this point she had, unbenounced to me, cancelled the checks, including money that was owed to me for the rehearsal which was signed off on the contract.On August 2rd Wednesday at 9:57am I wrote to let her know I would be returning all of her money “ as long as I didn’t have to see her face again”Admittedly I let my frustration get the best of me and I could not hold backNevertheless I wanted it to be over so I told her I would return all of her moneyLater that day I received an email from my bank letting me know she cancelled the checks.On August 3rd Thursday *** wrote to me saying she was cancelling all the checks including the one for the rehearsalProclaiming “I dropped a check somewhere on your property and I had to cancel all of the checks.”On August 4th *** write to let me know “ I am writing the Yelp review, I will be fair and honest and I won't slam your business because I think you have a beautiful place...we just ended on a bad note”I wrote “Thanks for that, I did my best to give you everything you asked for.”She wrote “I appreciate thatWe had some bad feeling at the end but the wedding itself was beautiful”On August 8th She writes to me asking for her paper check backI did not have her checkThe bank had her check, which she cancelled anywayBut now she was insisting that she was legally entitled to have her paper check backThere is no reason why I should have it since it was already deposited.I told her I didn’t owe her anythingThe bank stopped payment and returned the fundsOn top of that I was charged a return check fee.She write “Interesting, you tried to cash it”I wrote “You owe me the return check fee”Here’s where I’m wondering, why wouldn’t I cash her check, it was written to me as a deposit? It’s in my nameThere are several other more texts where I ask her to stop harassing me or I will contact my attorney, she said “I’ll beat you to it”And then continues to complain that it's her legal right to have her paper check backAgain, I do not have her check.Now I would like to add this: I realize this may all be subjective but this is what I experienced and heard with my own ears*** bulldozed her way through the entire agreement and even when she got exactly what she wanted she proceeded to write a bad review and send this report to Revdex.comOn the day of the wedding Her daughter and son in-law came to praise me for the beautiful wedding space and then proceeded to apologize for her terrible behaviourSon in-law let me know ‘he was disgusted by her and that he couldn’t wait for the wedding to be over so he didn’t have to deal with her’Her friends were speaking about her on my front porch behind her back, saying what a pain in the rear she is and how impossible she is’, also saying they couldn’t wait for the wedding to be over so they didn’t have to deal with herHere are my faults: My security was brand new and he didn’t take as much control in the parking lot as neededAnother mistake I made, the first mistake was making numerous exceptions to my usual protocol to try to make her happy, right from the very first interactionI made the mistake of giving in to her exceedly obnoxious and multiple requests***’s controlling nature is a force to be reckoned withI even gave her an extra restroom she wanted for no additional chargeIn the end in our final text exchanges I lost my temper and allowed my emotions to get the best of me.Please let me know what needs to be done from here