Eat Sleep P(l)ay Beaufort

One week ago on Friday, August 17, tensions came to a head between a group of local business owners and the owner of Eat Sleep Play Beaufort, Eugene Brancho. It represented the last straw for people that have had their lives personally impacted by Mr. Brancho. The group claimed fraudulent business tactics and bullying had reached a point where they had to do something about it. They protested around town two seperate times the afternoon of the 17th in order to bring awareness to Eat Sleep Play Beaufort’s fraudulent business tactics and strong armed coercion. It appears that now the floodgates have been opened, with more and more people coming forward to tell of their own encounters with Eat Sleep Play Beaufort. Tuesday night people gathered at Maggie’s Pub in Habersham to talk and tell stories that rang eerily similar in regards to personal and business relations with Brancho. Stories that ranged form petty, to bizarre, and downright disturbing.

Over the last couple years Eat Sleep Play Beaufort has become one of the premiere social media pages in town with over 70,000 followers on Facebook before it was taken down this week. The website features local businesses, events, jobs, photography, wedding guides, and history among other things. Brancho has been able to find some of the best local content and put it under one roof in a user friendly comprehensive fashion. It has become very hard not to see ESPB’s (Eat Sleep Play Beaufort) mark all over town. Annually local businesses are awarded with ‘Eat Sleep Play Best of Beaufort Awards,’ pieces of paper that many choose to proudly display in shop windows or walls. This past year Eat Sleep Play Beaufort was a sponsor for the 2018 Water Festival, a partner for the Santa Elena History Center, Friends of Hunting Island, and a sponsor for the Port Royal Soft Shell Crab Festival, among many others.

That is where legitimacy seems to end and the waters grow murky. Eat Sleep Play Beaufort holds an F rating with the Better Business Bureau on two complaints. All of the business transactions described by people who had been burned mentioned Brancho’s penchant for verbal agreements that often left them on the wrong side of a deal with little option for recourse. Currently the given address for ESPB is 1010 Bay St. which happens to be the downtown marina bathroom. Until just this week it was listed on the website but can still be seen as the location on the Better Business Bureau’s page. The building used to be used by the city but as stated has been restrooms for boaters for decades. There aren’t any numbers or signage denoting its actual address whatsoever making the fact that it has a physical address mostly forgotten to the past. Mail addressed to Eat Sleep Play Beaufort is still being sent there, most of it is thrown away but occasionally legal notifications are returned to sender. The Beaufortonian has confirmed this and seen an actual letter addressed to Eat Sleep Play Beaufort at this location. It’s hard to understand how a professional commercial business is run without an address to receive mail.

The march itself was born out of Kelly Chelten reaching out for help, she found herself in a situation where Brancho was harassing her and she felt unsafe. Chelton drew attention from her Facebook live videos around town and in December of 2016 Brancho wanted to meet. After talking the two reached an agreement, Chelton would help manage one of his social media pages while also doing business tour videos of new businesses in Beaufort with the promise of more responsibilities for ESPB. After several weeks of work Chelton asked for a contract in order to have documentation of agreed payments.

“(Brancho’s) response was, ‘Well, I don’t do contracts.’”

After that Chelton decided to stop working for Brancho and started her own company, Lowcountry Spotlight, LLC. Once she had her own advertising company Chelton says that Brancho began to follow her around town, walking closely behind her and following her into stores, while also spreading lies about her to business owners.

“What really bothers me is the fact that due to my leg disability, I am terrified to go anywhere alone, especially in downtown Beaufort, because I have seen (Brancho) get angry and I cannot physically run away.”

Finally Chelton pleaded for help online but it was reported and taken down for mentioning Brancho’s name. It so happened that another woman saw the post taken down and followed it with her own experience without naming anyone. Amanda Patel’s post caught fire and spread across large groups with Beaufort members who all seemed to have similar stories. From there the march was born. Since then more people are willing to speak up and share their experiences.

“It’s Beaufort’s #Metoo movement” wryly cracked Maggie’s Pub owner Ken Reed “not to trivialize the #MeToo movement but the first thing people say when you mention any dealings with Brancho is ‘Oh My God, me too!’”

Ken owns Eat Sleep Play Beaufort LLC, he filed for it in 2016 after Brancho let the name lapse. He has two other LLC’s which he filed for in an effort to curtail Brancho’s business. Ken Reed and Anjanette Neale have both had their run-ins with Brancho who has called at their work, Butler Chrysler Dodge Jeep, claiming that he wanted to bring his under warranty car in to be worked on but did not feel safe with Neale at the dealership, alleging that she’d threatened to shoot him. Neale believes that this all stems from a Facebook post in which she mentioned getting a CWP because of a stalker. This tactic failed to get Neale fired so Brancho filed a negative claim with the Better Business Bureau. Neale has had previous encounters with Brancho before this, she used to help friends with social media pages and building websites, including getting several Facebook pages back from Brancho after he’d been made administrator and failed to relinquish them. Neale designed the all the signs for the downtown protest.

If all of this Facebook he-said-she-said seems silly, it isn’t. Social media clout and currency is how Brancho has threatened businesses who refuse his service or competitors. It would be a laugh if Beaufort businesses weren’t held in thrall of it. The Beaufortonian has received written and oral statements going back almost a decade from dozens of local business owners who have been on the wrong side of Brancho. Many people say that if they refused the services of Eat Sleep Play Beaufort Brancho would rate their business 1 star on Facebook and write scathing reviews while spreading damaging rumors around town. Several small business owners didn’t want their names mentioned because they still believe Eat Sleep Play Beaufort’s massive following, and Brancho’s administrative hold on their sites/pages, can tank their businesses.

One woman who has successfully taken Brancho to court has stepped forward to give her story. In May of 2016 LeeAnn Logan, owner of Exclusively Yours LLC, hired Brancho to do Facebook marketing for her company. Brancho refused a written contract but verbally agreed to to three marketing posts a week for three months, to advertise Exclusively Yours on Eat Sleep Play Beaufort, and to host giveaways to promote business. On a separate occasion Brancho was paid to write an article on the business’ location move and publish it in Eat Sleep Play Beaufort. All told it was a sum of $1,150.00. Only three posts were completed on the Facebook page, the giveaway was posted months after the fact with no winner, and the ad posted was simply a photo of Logan’s old business card displaying her old location. Logan pleaded for an edit to her advertisement and finally Brancho put a white bar over the incorrect information and typed over it. Finally she asked for it to be taken down and given her money back.

When asked what pushed her to act the answer was very simple, “I was sick and tired.”

LeeAnn wanted to prove a point for not only for herself but for the countless others who had been placed in the same situation but felt too overwhelmed to speak out.

“I wanted people to know that this wasn’t for the money and that what happened to me happened to over 40 businesses.”

While she was hounding Brancho for her money Logan went before the chamber of commerce and called city council members. She talked to (Mayor) Billy Keyserling who told her that “(Brancho) and him were friends, that he couldn’t believe that Brancho would do something like that, especially to other businesses.” Logan says that Keyserling told her the only way to make it stop would be “to get 100 people marching downtown and then if (Logan), still felt strongly about it, she should speak on an open mic night at a city council meeting.”

“Everyone knew and there was nothing to do, so I sued.”

After six months of asking for her money back Logan filed. She did this on her own and without a lawyer. On June 29, 2017, LeeAnne Logan was awarded most of the $1100 plus punitive that she sought.

Michael Pressley paid 300$ for a website for Rosie O’Grady’s Pub that was never built then had to play cat and mouse to wrestle back his facebook page from Brancho. Alyssa Johnson posted pictures of checks worth 1700$ on Facebook written for social media advertising for 39 weeks and a website, the payments yielded two Facebook posts and no website. Johnson also has stated Brancho has touched her inappropriately. Alyse Bingham met with Brancho while in college at USCB. He offered her opportunity to intern and write articles for him but stated that he could only pay her in gift cards. After four articles she asked when she would finally get paid. After writing a letter to him, Brancho promised to send a check in the mail. Alyse never received anything and had entirely forgotten about it till seeing posts all over Facebook. Several photographers have come forward and stated that Brancho has used their work without expressed permission. Bob Murr’s (Murr’s Printing) statement reads that Brancho had utilized his business in the past to promote for the former owner of Panani’s resturaunt. Though Brancho himself was receiving payment for work rendered, Murr didn’t see a dime of the $650 owed to him. Murr printed all the signs, on spot, the day of the protest.

From locals to people who have answered his call from far away to come work gigs many say that they have had trouble receiving payment for work done for Eat Sleep Play Beaufort. The creme de la creme of these stories may come in the form of $1500 dollars paid by Beaufort AMVETS for promotion that was never seen. AMVETS is America’s largest and oldest veterans society. In an area that identifies with military pride and service, Brancho took money without providing the agreed upon services. Only one post was ever made for AMVETS page, a post promoting a comedy night that provided the incorrect date. The litany goes on and on, with too many to list here. It is worth noting that the Beaufortonian has not been able to reach Brancho for comment on these allegations.

It seemed as though the whole town had been touched by this but no one had the courage to speak out until now. Beaufort needs to take a long hard look at itself and ask how something like this could happen within the community for so long without recourse. Is social media image more valuable than a neighbors well being? While the actions of Eat Sleep Play Beaufort and its owner were little more than than an open secret, real people in this town were being hurt while others looked away. Business interests and the desire to not rock the boat let these activities go on for years before a small group of mostly women who have been victimized decided to say enough is enough. For now though the women who have born the brunt of Brancho’s wrath and misdealings say that they don’t intend to quit raising awareness and plan on another march in the near future.