Dairy Strike Limits Traffic At Winery Catrina Customers Shy Away From Broadview Picket Line

Workers picketing Broadview Dairy have inadvertently hurt one of their neighbors - a Spokane winery - during the busy Christmas shopping season.

Officials at Caterina Winery, which celebrated its’ two-year anniversary this month, said the month-old strike by Teamsters Union Local No. 582 has significantly hurt the winery’s business.

Both the winery and the dairy are housed in the Broadview Dairy Building at Washington and North River Drive.

“We just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said winemaker Mike Scott. “We were just caught in the crossfire.”

The winery is owned by a Barbieri family trust and by Seattle attorney Lyn Tangen, who also manages the trust. Broadview Dairy is a unit of Goodale & Barbieri Cos., the Barbieris’ primary business.

“There’s no question that the strike has impacted business,” Tangen said.

About 47 Teamsters union members went on strike Nov. 1, following failed contract negotiations with Broadview Dairy.

Prior to the strike, Scott said, Caterina was showing a “significant increase in sales, right across the board.” But, during the first two to three weeks of picketing, he said, striking workers marched back and forth on the sidewalk, repeatedly passing the winery and an entrance shared by the two companies.

Business from the tasting room “dropped off almost completely and has never recovered,” Scott said. Tasting-room business accounts for about 35 percent of monthly revenues, he said. Remaining revenues come from distribution and wholesale business.

After the strike began, Tangen initiated discussions with union representatives who agreed to move the strike about a half block north on Washington, to the intersection with Cataldo. The impact was “substantially less” with the pickets farther up the street, Tangen said.

“The union has agreed to cooperate with us in keeping the pickets away from the winery,” Tangen said. The damage is “difficult to know” until sales receipts are tallied, she said.

Denny Young, a business representative for the Teamsters, said the union had no intention of hurting any business other than Broadview Dairy. The union readily cooperated with the request to move the pickets, he said.

“We’re not boycotting the winery,” Young said. “We don’t want to affect their business.”

Still, Scott said the strike’s impact will translate to a difficult start to 1996. “Like any business, we rely on holiday sales to carry us through,” he said.

, DataTimes