NEW ORLEANS — Smoke and Honey opened its doors on Bienville Street six months ago. Since then, co-owner Vassiliki Ellwood Yiagazis said they've experienced four power outages.
“Most recently, we had to shut down for 12 days due to poor infrastructure," Yiagazis said, “There was a undocumented live wire running straight next to our system.”
Yiagazis said that because of the live wire, a technician was unable to repair the restaurant's oven, and they were forced to close until Entergy could show up and shut off the power.
"The “hood” in need of repair was originally installed too close to one of our primary lines, creating a potential safety issue," said Beau Tidwell, the communications manager for Entergy.
"I lost half of my team," Yiagazis said, “It has been close to around $40,000 of lost revenue, spoilage, wages, in the last two and a half weeks.”
Co-owner Lauren Lynch showed WWL Louisiana the texts and calls where she contacted Entergy multiple times.
“It was me calling, and it was one of our employees who quit over this because she said it was too stressful," Lynch said.
The restaurant experienced the other outages during rainstorms, the co-owners said.
“There was a fairly normal rainstorm for a summer in New Orleans, and our electric line completely came out of the transformer and was just dangling on the street, so we had to yet again close," Yiagazis said.
Entergy responded to the claims by Smoke and Honey by saying, "Our records indicate two unplanned outages at this location in the last 5 years, and only one of significant duration. On June 28th of this year, construction work being performed by another utility knocked down a pole which disrupted service for approximately 63 minutes."
More than 17,000 customers have lost power over the last three to four months, according to data the utility provided by the council.
“I am in a frustrated mood right now," Councilmember Joe Giarrusso said, “I’m not here to berate, that’s the easy thing to do, and wag your finger. I’m just looking for what the solutions are.”
Entergy said reliability is improving but that increasing weather events, lightning and vegetation were to blame.
“We’ve had a rash of weather events that have come through this year that have affected our reliability and then the other thing too we had some of our sacrificial items, like the lightning arresters, fail," an Entergy spokesperson told the council.
But Giarrusso pressed the utility, saying some of the outages happened in fair weather.
“I understand that weather can cause things, but 22 percent of the outages have nothing to do with the weather," Giarrusso said.
The utility said bad weather can cause wear and tear on parts that may end up giving out on a fair-weather day.
Even though a hurricane has not hit New Orleans this season, the owners of Smoke and Honey feel that they've already weathered a storm.
“If that ever happens again, we will not survive it," Yiagazis said.
On Tuesday, top Entergy officials contacted the business about the situation, Yiagazis said.
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