Christine Uhland: Avoiding Southern Season

Regarding the July 3 Work & Money article “Southern Season’s woes pour down on small suppliers”: I am appalled that Southern Season’s CEO, Clay Hamner, is using Chapter 11 bankruptcy to force his suppliers to pay for his own poor business decisions. He seems indifferent to the impact this will have on these small businesses and artisans.

Hamner piles insult on injury by referring to these small vendors as needing “more handholding than the sophisticated vendors” while he tries to persuade them to continue to supply his company despite his not paying them what he owes them. How arrogant and condescending!

And how ludicrous for him to assert that it is only in the minds of these vendors that he didn’t honor what he said he was going to do. I assure Hamner that all of the rational readers of this article understand that he, in fact, broke his contract with them, that he is trying to avoid ever paying them what he owes them and that this is indeed dishonorable. Shame on him.

I will not shop with Southern Season again until he pays all of his vendors every penny he owes them. And I will pass this article on to my friends who shop there, too.

This story was originally published July 16, 2016 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Christine Uhland: Avoiding Southern Season."