Investment group FIP Ventures has signed a contract to purchase the vast majority of commercial establishments in Fire Island Pines, the internationally-famous gay community.
The group is purchasing the assets of Pines Commercial Properties, including the famed Pavilion nightclub complex, the Blue Whale and Bay Bar restaurants, the Hotel Ciel, a grocery store, gym, clothing store and numerous retail outlets and residential properties. The deal is expected to close in March.
The FIP Ventures team consists of Seth Weissman, 26, a Pines summer renter and a managing partner of Weissman Equities, a Manhattan-based real estate investment firm; Matthew Blesso, 36, president of Blesso Properties, a developer of innovative high-end real estate in New York and abroad, and Andrew Kirtzman, 48, a veteran New York City journalist, author, Fire Island Pines homeowner and owner of The Madison Fire Island Pines.
The FIP Ventures team is a diverse group of highly-accomplished professionals whose combined experience will ensure the continuing success of the Fire Island Pines.
Blesso, a creative and socially-conscious developer, has garnered numerous design awards, including an American Institute Architects New York State Award of Excellence in 2009. “I’m thrilled our team is acquiring this storied group of assets. This purchase allows us to employ unique designs and concepts and build upon a great tradition,” he said.
Kirtzman, the former host of “Kirtzman and Co.” on WCBS-TV and “Inside City Hall” on New York 1 News, got his start in journalism as co-founder of The Fire Island Villager, which he began publishing at the age of 17. In 2007, he opened a high-end guest house in the Pines called The Madison Fire Island Pines.
“The Pines is both a chic international destination and a small town, with its own long-standing traditions,” said Kirtzman, who has spent virtually every summer of his life in Fire Island. ”We’re intent on preserving the very qualities that make the Pines unique.”
Weissman, named one of Real Estate New York’s “Thirty Under Thirty” people to watch in 2008 and former Goldman Sachs investment banker, said, “This is a community with some of the most accomplished, affluent and creative figures in the gay community. They demand a high level of services and amenities and we will give it to them.”
Further details of the transaction and a description of the purchaser’s plans will not be released until the acquisition is complete.
The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) and Gay Ad Network has announced the formation of a strategic marketing alliance to help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender owned businesses increase their connections and expand their network of potential customers. Through this partnership, NGLCC programs and initiatives will be presented across the 250 gay and lesbian web sites that are represented by Gay Ad Network. In addition, NGLCC business members and corporate partners will have access to exclusive online advertising packages offered by Gay Ad Network, in which campaign activation fees and minimum contract term requirements for NGLCC business members and corporate partners will be waived.
“We are proud to partner with Gay Ad Network to help make their valuable online marketing services more accessible to our members,” said NGLCC co-founder and CEO Chance Mitchell.
By working with Gay Ad Network, the estimated 1.4 million LGBT-owned businesses and entrepreneurs in the U.S can expand their reach beyond local newspapers and yellow pages to more easily reach prospective customers on all of the major search engines and on many of the most popular gay and lesbian web sites.
“Our 29,000 national and affiliate members across the country are always looking for new ways to grow their businesses,” said Justin G. Nelson, NGLCC co-founder and president. “This is just one more way the NGLCC is helping them do that.”
Businesses can outsource the management of their search marketing campaigns to Gay Ad Network and expand their targeted reach through online display advertising. The company’s search marketing capabilities include automated keyword bidding across Google, Yahoo!, and Bing with performance optimization based on clicks, web leads and phone calls. Ranked as the largest gay media property by comScore Media Metrix, Gay Ad Network supports remarketing and behavioral targeting to help businesses cost-effectively build brands and acquire new customers.
On Monday, editor-in-chief Jennifer Vanasco of 365Gay, wrote an article about the corporate sponsorship of a concert in Uganda in which Jamaican artist Beenie Man, known for his vicious, homophobic songs, said from the stage, “In my family, we don’t have any gay person but if you’re gay, my brother that’s not my fault,” before launching into a song about slitting the throats of gay men. Beenie Man thanked Pepsi for sponsoring the concert on his Facebook page.
Tuesday Vanasco received an email response to her inquiry from PepsiCo about it’s sponsorship.
Dear Jennifer,
In response to your article, Did Pepsi sponsor an anti-gay concert in Uganda?
I wanted to provide you with this official statement on behalf of PepsiCo:
“We are appalled by the performer’s lyrics and find them repugnant. Our bottling partner in Uganda was not aware of the performer’s views and never would have sponsored the concert with this knowledge. Moving forward, we will work closely with our bottling partners to be more vigilant about the events associated with our brands.”
Please let me know if you need anything further.
Sincerely,
Michelle Naughton
Beenie Man was univited to the Auckland Big Day Out event which was held last month as reported by GayNZ.com, The producers of Auckland’s Big Day Out decided Beenie Man would be uninvited from the popular music festival last month following a storm of protest against the singer and his violently homophobic lyrics.
“Although aware of the controversial nature of Beenie Man and his previous lyrics that have caused offence with the Gay and Lesbian and wider community, the producers understood that the artist had renounced these sentiments and no longer expresses those views,” said the Big Day Out’s management last month.
Emails received by GayNZ.com following the decision, and a statement signed by Beenie Man’s record company, quoted the singer as “heartbroken” about “misunderstandings” over his lyrics. Responding to specific questions from GayNZ.com, Beenie Man was then quoted as saying: “I am not a supporter of hatred and never was… I do not sing or perform any of those songs nor promote any violence on stage. I have been performing all over the world and there hasn’t been any issues of recent.”
At PepsiCo’s website in the Values & Philosophy section it reads, We embrace people with diverse backgrounds, traits and ways of thinking. Our diversity brings new perspectives into the workplace and encourages innovation, as well as the ability to identify new market opportunities.
PepsiCo is based in nearby Purchase, NY.
- Update - 1:00 PM (ET) Peter Tatchell, International Human and LGBT Rights activist just sent this statement regarding PepsiCo and the Beenie Man concert:
Protests by Change.org, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), OutRage! and others have persuaded PepsiCo to climb down and apologise, after it sponsored a concert in Uganda by “murder music” singer Beenie Man who encourages the killing of lesbians and gay men.
At his Ugandan concert on Saturday 5 December, Beenie Man sang the song, Mi Nah Wallah, which includes a call to cut the throats of gay people.
Uganda is notorious for homophobic violence and is currently considering introducing the death penalty for “aggravated” homosexuality and for “serial (gay) offenders.”
Following protests, Pepsi expressed regret over their sponsorship of Beenie Man. In a statement to Change.org PepsiCo said:
“We are appalled by the performer’s lyrics and find them repugnant. Our bottling partner in Uganda was not aware of the performer’s views and never would have sponsored the concert with this knowledge…Moving forward, we will work closely with our bottling partners to be more vigilant about the events associated with our brands.”
Peter Tatchell of London LGBT rights group OutRage! said: “We want to thank GLAAD and Change.org for their swift and effective lobbying of PepsiCo. Their efforts got a positive result. PepisiCo will be more careful in future.”
Earlier, David Allison of OutRage! wrote to PepsiCo:
“We are shocked to learn that not only are you sponsoring the appearance of Beenie Man, the Jamaican dancehall music performer, but compounding the offence by sponsoring him in Uganda…Uganda’s government is currently proposing legislation calling for the imprisonment and execution of gay people.
“Backing a concert that includes a notorious homophobe in a country launching draconian legislation against people simply because of their sexual orientation is a singularly inept, not to say immoral….We ask that you withdraw your sponsorship and re-affirm your support for human rights,” wrote Mr Allison.
Beenie Man has a long history of inciting the murder of LGBT people.
His hit tune, Bad Man Chi Chi Man (Bad Man, Queer Man), instructs listeners to kill gay DJs and boasts that people would gladly go to jail for killing a queer:
In another song, Damn, he sings: “I’m dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the queers”.
Han Up Deh includes the lyrics: “Hang lesbians with a long piece of rope.”
Beenie Man is also notorious for the track, Batty Man Fi Dead (Queers Must Be killed):
“All faggots must be killed! If you f*ck ass, then you get copper and lead [bullets].”
BusinessWeek has an interesting article about LGBT businesses who are “approved” by the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and how that approval can help their business grow.
With only three employees and $1 million in sales, New York advertising agency Double Platinum faced a challenge convincing its largest clients that it could handle their biggest jobs. But in 2005, after being certified by the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce as gay- and lesbian-owned, the agency has found some unexpected openings.
Over the past four years, the certification has helped Double Platinum win $650,000 in contracts from large companies that have quietly expanded their diversity supplier programs to include gay-, lesbian-, bisexual-, and transgender (GLBT)-owned companies. The certification, says Stephanie Blackwood, who co-founded the company with Arthur Korant, is “no guarantee of business. “It is a channel to business opportunity, that’s all.”
Blackwood says the certification has given her an entree to companies that want to market to the gay and lesbian community—a specialty of hers—or want to reflect more accurately the diversity of their own employees in their supplier base. Through such diversity programs, she’s worked with companies including Continental Airlines, IBM, and Dutch bank ING.
