Dog Pound Monopoly officially ends

Town picks a new beach concessionaire, ending 11-year monopoly at Charlestown Town Beach

By Will Collette

One of the “sleeper” items in the Town Council’s March 12 “consent agenda” was approval of a new contract with Johnny Angels clam shack to provide concession services at both town beaches. Johnny Angels out-bid Councilor Lisa DiBello’s room mate and business associate Deborah Dellolio who has held a monopoly on the concessions for 11 years through “The Dog Pound,” Dellolio’s hot dog wagon business.

Last September, I uncovered conflicts of interest, low payments to the town, lack of Health Department inspections and issues about the Dog Pound’s operations. After a summer of trouble, the town notified Dellolio that it would not extend her contract a second year and would put out the 2012 summer concession contract out to bid.

Three vendors bid for the contract – the Dog Pound, Johnny Angels and New England Frozen Lemonade. 

Hope they'll have Peeps sushi! Yum!

Johnny Angels bid was an offer to pay the town $4504 for the right to sell snacks at Charlestown Town Beach, compared to the Dog Pound’s bid of $4501. Johnny Angels owner John Martin sweetened the deal for the town by offering to give up the two parking spaces assigned to the vendor.

Last year, the fight over parking spaces between the town and Deborah Dellolio held up the contract-signing and caused a late start for the Dog Pound. 

No one but Johnny Angels bid for the rights to Blue Shutters Beach, so Johnny Angels, with its identical $4504 bid for Blue Shutters won by default.

Or Peepsza!

Even if the Dog Pound had pulled off another magic bid and came in #1, they may have been disqualified under the terms of the bidding notice. The town required the winning bidder to have a good record of service, and the documentation the town has on its problems with the Dog Pound during summer 2011 might have bumped them.

But we’ll never know because the Dog Pound lost the bid and the new contract has now been approved by the Town Council. 

But the contract was not approved without some drama. Town Council approval of the new beach concession contract was taken off the Consent Agenda, at the request of Council member Lisa DiBello and brought before the Council for open discussion and a vote.

For a moment, it looked like DiBello was going to attack the loss of business suffered by her room mate and business associate. That would have been an off-the-charts violation of the state Ethics Law, based on her clear conflict of interest.

Instead, DiBello wanted to make a public point that (a) she was NOT going to recuse herself, despite the conflict of interest, but instead (b) she wanted to go on the record as voting to “abstain.”

And so it went, with the new contract to Johnny Angels being approved on a vote of 4-0, with DiBello abstaining, but not recusing.

DiBello gave no explanation for this complex action or what point she was trying to make