Prom plans begin again

When this year’s Mt. Spokane High School seniors were just freshmen, they started fundraising for their prom. They planned dances and car washes, held bake sales and sold T-shirts to raise enough money to pay for the prom by the time they were ready to graduate.

By the end of May, they had put down a $2,150 deposit with the Sapphire Room, an event venue in the Northern Lights Brewery building, near the intersection of Trent and Hamilton, and set the date of May 22 for this year’s prom.

English teacher Sara Ellerd, the prom group adviser, got a surprising call just after Christmas from the DJ the group had booked.

“He wanted to know where we were having the prom now that the Sapphire Room was closed. I was shocked,” said Ellerd. She tried contacting the Sapphire Room and its owner, LeeAnn Saccomanno, of Spokane, but the phone number was no longer in service.

“A group of students came in to see me just 10 minutes after that phone call, and I tried not to cry, I just didn’t know what to do,” said Ellerd. “I knew their money was gone.”

Saccomanno said she feels terrible about what happened to the students.

“I will do anything I can to rectify this wrong. I will make sure the students get their money back and are taken care of,” Saccomanno said in a phone call last week.

By noon Tuesday, Ellerd had not heard from Saccomanno, and the students are now planning a fundraiser at El Sombrero, 10117 N. Newport Highway, on Jan. 24.

“They are spider-webbing out the best way they can, trying to find a way to do this, to work some good deals,” Ellerd said.

Saccomanno said she sold her business last summer and that that, combined with a divorce, led to a nervous breakdown which meant she couldn’t continue to run the event facility.

The building’s owner, Mark Baier, said the Sapphire Room had been in the location for about a year and a half and was behind on rent. He tried repeatedly to work something out with Saccomanno.

“She moved out, I believe, in August,” Baier said. “I feel terrible about this. As a building owner I don’t run the businesses in the building, but I’ll do whatever I can to help out the Mt. Spokane students.”

The DJ with the bad news is Daren Anderson, of Big Sound Entertainment, and he was just as surprised as Ellerd when he found out the venue had closed.

“It’s horrible for the kids. No, no one called me either,” Anderson said. “We will try and come to the kids’ rescue and offer something in terms of entertainment so they don’t have to go without.”

The students will have to raise at least another $1,000 before the end of school to pull off a prom somewhere else.

Senior Nick Stewart, 17, said he feels like he and his classmates got ripped off. “But … we can do this if we have to; we can raise more money.”

The students met last Thursday morning to try and figure out what to do.

Ellerd told them the first step was to control rumors: “There will be a prom. We just need to figure out how to do it,” she told the group.

They went through options for how to do a prom on a short notice, including how difficult it is to find a venue at the height of wedding season.

Ellerd had a $1,000 personal deposit with Arbor Crest for her daughter’s now-canceled wedding and was willing to give that to her students.

“They were so nice and understanding at Arbor Crest, it’s just that with a big group like this, you really have to be 21 to be there,” said Ellerd.

A new event business, the Luxury Box, is now in the former Sapphire Room.

Owner Tina Bishop has been a wedding and event planner in Spokane for more than 15 years. Bishop leased the venue to be part of her Spokane Valley-based restaurant and event business. Last week, she offered to give the students the room for free.

“I just can’t believe this. I called LeeAnn many times to get her lists of bookings,” said Bishop. “I offered to keep people’s dates penciled in, so they won’t lose their spot, but I can’t cover their deposits.” Bishop never received complete booking lists from Saccomanno, yet she’s already covered some events booked with the defunct Sapphire Room.

“I can’t cover people’s deposits – I’m a different business,” said Bishop, “but I will work with them in any way I can.”

Bishop is concerned that the space itself now has a bad reputation that will rub off on her.

She also said it’s getting more and more difficult for event planners to get deposits from people because of situations like this.

“I mean, who are these people who run their businesses like this?” Bishop said. “It’s just not right.”

The Mt. Spokane seniors are not the only ones left in a bind by Saccomanno.

Wysteria Rush had booked the Sapphire Room for her upcoming wedding.

“I met with LeeAnn and my first impression was very good,” said Rush. “I checked her references with other wedding business people and everyone said she was good to work with.”

Rush’s $1,200 deposit check was cashed by Saccomanno in the beginning of July.

“In August my fiancé heard that she was selling her business, so I called her,” said Rush. “She assured me everything was hunky-dory, and that she wasn’t selling.”

Two months later Rush, who lives in the Tri-Cities, stopped by the venue and found it closed.

“My jaw dropped, I was like, ‘What?’ ” Rush said. “I called her, I e-mailed her, I sent her letters and I never got a response from her, not once.” Rush’s wedding has since been called off. She has also filed a claim in small claims court to get her deposit back.

In October, someone filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in Spokane. Saccomanno and her business, Enjoy Services LLC, had not responded to it yet.

Saccomanno said she was having an increasingly difficult time running her business, partly because someone stole money from her. She did not report the alleged theft to the police.

“There were many things I should have done differently,” she said, “but I felt completely overwhelmed.”

Saccomanno acknowledges seeing the check from Mt. Spokane High School when it was deposited into her business account. She has no explanation for why she didn’t call the school when her business closed.

“I had one piece of paper with Mt. Spokane on it and the phone number didn’t work,” she said.

Ellerd said she’s trying not to get her hopes up, but it would be nice if Saccomanno would keep her promise. Mostly, she wants other student groups to be aware.

“I really want people to hear about this because these kids worked for this prom for nearly a quarter of their life,” said Ellerd. “Teenagers aren’t that patient, but they really do work hard for things like this. I’m 40, and I try to imagine what it would be like if I’d worked 10 years for something and then this happened.”