- September 13, 2024
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Palm Coast’s Texas Roadhouse will not be seeking a permit to continue its weekly farmer’s market.
The restaurant had been hosting its farmer’s market for almost two months, according to its Facebook event posts. But, as it turns out, the events were had not been permitted through Palm Coast.
Communications Director Brittany Kershaw said the city did not actually shut the event down. The city received a complaint from a resident asking how the market was allowed to take place, which is when the special events team even became aware of the event.
On Aug. 13, a code enforcement officer stopped by the restaurant to speak to the event organizer, though it was not during a farmer’s market event.
Kershaw said the officer offered to help the event organizer through the process of getting the special events permit organized but, on Aug. 14, a Facebook post circulated among Palm Coast residents announcing the closure of the market and the restaurant’s monthly Community Night’s events.
“The truth of the matter is that we were made aware of an event, and we reached out and asked that they follow the process that set out for all events in the city of Palm Coast,” Kershaw said.
Site development coordinator Jacqueline Gonzalez, said to host an event like a farmer’s market, event organizers have to be approved by the SERT board, and the permits are only good for three months at a time.
Community recreation supervisor Geena Catalano said the organizer fills out a special event application with all the event’s details, which is reviewed by the multiple departments that make up SERT.
Kershaw said the city began to receive negative feedback from the post announcing the event’s end and issued a community bulletin explaining the event organizer had been asked to attend a Special Events Review Team meeting to apply for a permit for the event.
“It is important to note that at no point did any city official suggest terminating the event,” the bulletin said. “Our goal is simply to ensure that the event is safe, well-coordinated, and properly documented.”
But, in the week leading up to the Aug. 26 SERT meeting, Gonzalez received an email from Dan Cassidy, a Texas Roadhouse corporate employee, declining attending the meeting.
“I appreciate you taking the time to explain the process, but I think we will be moving away from doing these,” the email read.
Event organizer and Store Marketer Debs Pooler declined to comment, referring the Observer to corporate. A response from the corporate team was not available in time for this publication.
Gonzalez said the restaurant was not fined, nor was any code case even opened up against them.
The permitting process can be complicated because of the number of code ordinances, but, Kershaw said, the city SERT team walks every outside organization through the process to help them accomplish what they want to do.
“At the end of the day, I don't believe that it was the city's action that discouraged this event from going on,” Kershaw said.
In an emailed statement, Texas Roadhouse's corporate public relations team member Megan Pence said Roadhouse is sad it can no longer participate in the Farmer's Market and Community Nights events due to an issue with the lease.
"It was brought to our attention that our lease agreement prevents us from continuing to host events such as these, so to be both in compliance with our landlord and city ordinances, we have had to stop our participation," the email read. "Please know we love our local community and will seek out other ways to be great partners."
Even if the application had been completed and approved, there may have been things that needed to be changed about the Texas Roadhouse event to be in compliance with city code. For example, Gonzalez said per the code, the special events can only be held up to twice a month, and the organizer needs permission from the landowner.
Gonzalez said Palm Coast is also planning to launch a new online portal on Sept. 2 to make the application process event easier for events. Until this point, she said, the process had either been physical or sent over email.
The new portal, when launched, will allow applicants to track their application’s process.
This story was updated on Aug. 30.
