by John Ball
ON FEB. 18, the Detroit Metro Times published what has alternatively been called an “expose” and a “hit piece” about the owners of the Ann Arbor Brewing Company. Ann Arbor business owners Matt and Rene Greff’s business practices were summed up in the article as “insincere, and, at worst, highly unethical.” The resulting (mostly online) debate has drawn potshots at freelance writer Tom Perkins from local bloggers. The Greff’s story has generated hundreds of online comments, mostly anonymous.
If the saying is true that no publicity is bad publicity, Matt and Rene Gref are, once again, a bad news buffet—the beneficiaries of loads of free publicity for their two local brew pubs, one in downtown Ann Arbor and the other one in downtown Ypsilanti.
The Greffs, politically active local Democrats, drew ire when it was revealed they’d not only endorsed Rick Snyder in 2010, but that the two had contributed thousands of dollars to Snyder’s campaign.
Rene Gref defended the political support of Snyder, calling him “a friend.” In 2014, Matt and Rene Greff did not support, endorse or donate to their “friend” Rick Snyder. Instead, they embraced the candidacy of Democrat Mark Schauer.
The Feb. Detroit Metro Times piece grew out of allegations that during a Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to raise $75,000 to add a kitchen onto the couple’s Ypsilanti micro-brewery, they met with employees and urged them to solicit funds for the campaign. Tom Perkins writes, “A current employee who wished not to be identified tells the Metro Times that the Greffs charted new territory by pressuring staff earning less than a living wage ($9 an hour) to help pay to improve their own work conditions in a kitchen that lacked basics, like walls. The staffer says employees were then asked to solicit funds from family and friends, and each was given an individual link to the Indiegogo page that would monitor their pull.”
In the midst of soliciting money from customers and, allegedly, pressuring employees to solicit funds, Matt Greff posted photos of the couple in First Class seats on a Delta flight bound for India (paid for by Indian investors with whom the Greff’s were working to open a micro-brewery).
“Winter seems to be shaping up nicely. Miami, Barbados, India, Belgium, Italy, Poland,” wrote Matt Greff on his Facebook page on Aug. 12, 2014. Metro Times writer Tom Perkins goes on to report: “He followed that up on Sept. 12 by posting a Romney-esque photo of Rene and him with big, toothy grins on an airplane toasting Bloody Marys. ‘So happy to be back on Delta with an upgrade and pre-takeoff bloodies,’ read the caption. (Both posts have since been removed from his page.)”
In Nov. 2014 came accusations that after Matt and Rene Greff had raised $75,000 from crowndfunding, they’d “pink-slipped” the very same kitchen staff for whose better working conditions the money was supposed to have been raised.
Chris Savage is the Chair of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party. He blogs under the moniker Eclectablog. One day after the Metro Times article came out, he published a blog entry in which he accused both the newspaper and freelancer Tom Perkins of publishing “tabloid rubbish.”
Savage writes, “Anne and I are personal friends with the Greffs. I am not writing this piece because I am their friend. I’m their friend because they are decent, honorable, caring people who work their asses off and do tremendous good both for their community and for the progressive causes and candidates that I believe in. I’m writing this piece because I am entirely disgusted by the Metro Times for publishing Perkins’ shoddy ‘journalism’.”
Matt Greff posted an entry to his Facebook page in which he writes “…we, our staff, friends, and supporters were very sad to read the article today that inaccurately portrayed our Indiegogo campaign and our involvement with staff incentives.”
He goes on to repeat an assertion which he and his wife have made repeatedly to the media: “Rene and I, like our investors, have also not made a penny from Corner Brewery and this is also something we stress and worry about every day. Not only haven’t we made money, we have personally loaned the business $165,000 in order to make improvements.”
One of the investors is Mark Maynard, an Ypsilanti blogger who, together with his wife, liquidated their savings and invested it in the Greff’s Ypsilanti micro-brewery.
On Feb. 18 Maynard posted a piece to his blog about the Detroit Metro Times article and its assertions that investors had not been paid, had not been told of the Indiegogo campaign and knew little of the finances of the company in which they were part owners. Maynard, who bought a “half share” with $10,000, shared with the Metro Times he’d been told the business would pay him back three-and-a-half times his original investment and begin making disbursements to investors within three years of the 2006 investment date.
Maynard writes, “The money never came, though….It’s now 2015, however, and we’ve yet to see the first dollar distributed. We figured that, eventually, we’d see something. And we believed Matt and Rene when they said that, in spite of the crowds, and the booming distribution business, the Brewery had yet to turn a profit, as revenue was being funneled back into things like bottling lines, geothermal coolers, and the like.”
Metro Times Managing Editor Michael Jackman said that the paper has, to date, fielded no phone calls or emails from the Greffs asking for corrections or a retraction.