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An anonymous group has been papering a shopping center with fliers criticizing one man's efforts to get the birds out of the area.
By LEON M. TUCKER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2002
CLEARWATER -- Roger Rohm called it a "punch below the belt."
Rohm has been trying to trap and remove some of the 100 peacocks and peahens that wander his neighborhood in the Greenbriar area. This week, he found dozens of fliers hanging from the walls and windows of his Dunedin upholstery store denouncing his actions.
"The owners of Rohm Upholstery are involved in the inhumane trapping and removal of peacocks from their natural home for over 85 years," the fliers, decorated with a peacock in bloom, read. "Please support our beloved peacocks by not supporting Rohm Upholstery."
The flier added: "!!eggs have been killed!!"
Rohm denied breaking eggs or harming the birds.
"There are other people in the development doing stuff like that and they're trying to blame it on me," he said. "I can't be responsible for anybody else. I was only trying to move them to where they would be safer."
Rohm said the postings were likely the work of neighbors who oppose the peacock relocation.
Fed up with noise the peacocks make and damage they cause, the 59-year-old circulated a petition and got nearly 200 people to ask the neighborhood association to get rid of some of the peacocks. When the homeowners association refused to help, he tried to capture the birds himself, but was only able to catch one.
Rohm took the peacock to a 21/2-acre property near Lakeland where the owner is taking care of it.
"It's more of a nuisance than anything," Rohm said of the fliers. "They didn't even have the nerve to sign it.
"Of course, if they did they would have been sued," he added.
Neighbors inside the Haven Square shopping center, where Rohm's shop is located, were also angry to find the papers tacked on the walls along the sidewalk there.
"It's out of line for someone to attack a person at their place of business," said Peter Smith, owner of Second Debut Consignment Shop. "That's a private squabble and this isn't the way to do things."
George Kokoris, the manager of Crazy George's Big Apple Bar and Grill, said he saw it happen.
Kokoris said he was inside his restaurant when he saw two young girls and at least one female adult taping the fliers on windows and trash cans around the shopping center.
"They came in here and handed me one," said Kokoris. "Apparently they wanted to get their point across."
Kokoris, who had been watching television at the time, said he did not read the flier until later. But when he did, he became concerned.
"It's one thing to have your opinion and not be happy about something," he said. "But what you're doing is affecting all the surrounding businesses, and that's not really fair because we had nothing to do with it."
Rohm and his wife, Edna, called the Sheriff's Office to report what they consider harassment. But deputies did not respond, they said, and the couple took down the fliers and went about their business.
"It hurt that they tried to do that, but we're not worried about it," said Edna Rohm. "And if people feel that way, we don't want their business anyway."