Haitian food truck owners sue Parksley, council member; say constitutional rights were violated
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Haitian immigrants who own a food truck in the Town of Parksley on the Eastern Shore are suing the town and a town council member, alleging they violated their constitutional rights with harassment and retaliation, including threats of jail time.
Theslet Benoir and Clemene Bastien, who moved to the Shore from Haiti in 2005 after receiving asylum, filed the lawsuit earlier this week in Norfolk Federal Court.
Town Councilmember Henry Nicholson is at the center of the lawsuit, and is being sued both personally and in his official capacity as a council member.
The lawsuit alleges the behavior from Nicholson started after the couple opened Eben-Ezer Haitian Food Truck LLC, the town’s first food truck, on Bennett Street in June 2023. It sits next to a brick-and-mortar Haitian food market the pair opened after several years of working in local chicken plants.
The lawsuit states that on June 16, 2023, Nicholson initially came by to complain about how the food truck was competing with local businesses.
Later that day, Nicholson came back and things escalated. He alleged dumped grease from the couple’s truck led to a nearby pipe burst, saying in the Eastern Shore Post in October that he believed the truck “was illegally hooked to the sewer system and the pipe was cut to prevent damage to the system.”
That’s when he went onto the couple’s private property and cut the truck’s water line, which caused about $1,300 in damage and food spoilage, the lawsuit says.
“They’re right that at one point a pipe did burst, but it had nothing to do with our clients’ food truck, it’s not why the cut the water pipe,” said Justin Pearson with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm that’s taken up the case. He says the couple used a local business to pump their waste and shared receipts that refute the town’s claims.
“Earlier that same day, Councilmember Nicholson had been over there screaming at Theslet and Clemene for competing with nearby restaurants, and so this idea that later that same day it was just some coincidence that he had to cut the water pipe, is a little farfetched,” said Pearson.
“Not only that, if the government had to cut the water pipe, Councilmember Nicholson is not the person to do that,” Pearson added. “The government in charge of the sewer system is the Accomack County Department of Health, and later that same day after the water pipe was cut, they told my clients that it should not have been cut. So the town can come up with whatever excuse it wants to .. it’s based unfortunately because it didn’t want competition with restaurants, and frankly didn’t like the fact that my clients were from Haiti.”
The next day, Nicholson showed up again and tried to stop food shipment to the truck by parking his truck in the way, and falsely claimed the couple didn’t have paperwork to operate the truck, the lawsuit says.
When he was confronted, he yelled at Bastien “go back to [her] own country,” in front of several witnesses, Pearson said.
Nicholson would go on to help pass a ban on permanent food trucks in Parksley in October 2023. Though at the time Mayor Frank Russell publicly announced that the town didn’t intend to enforce the ban until May 2024 when Benoir and Bastien’s license was set to expire. Pearson and his team have documentation that the couple paid $30 for the license, which lists their food truck and not the brick-and-mortar store.
However, after the Institute of Justice sent a letter to the town on Nov. 2 that called on them to change course, the town repealed the ban. But instead of allowing the couple’s food truck to operate, there was a “newfound interpretation of its zoning code and “Parksley doubled down on its new position that food trucks have never been allowed under the zoning code,” in apparent retaliation for the couple consulting with attorneys, Pearson and his team say.
“All of a sudden they decided that there was this new position that they should take that was totally different that anything they’d said before,” Pearson said.
After that change, the town attorney sent a letter alleging that the couple were committing criminal misdemeanors for each day they operated their food truck, and that each offense could result in 30 days in jail and $250 in fines per day.
At the moment the couple’s store is open, but the food truck remains closed.
The lawsuit is seeking nominal and compensatory damages, including the spoiled food, damage to the water line and lost revenue from their truck being closed. They’re also seeking an injunction that would make the town change their position they made in response to the November 2 letter, allowing them to reopen.
Otherwise the couple would have to get a special use permit with the town, “which the town council has complete discretion in granting or denying,” Pearson’s team said. “They will need to accomplish the impossible feat of obtaining written approval from every business owner within 500 feet of the food truck—including Councilmember Nicholson.”
Pearson said Benoir and Bastien just want to operate their business without fear of retaliation, which he says has happened before their case.
“They were not the first victims of Councilmember Nicholson’s abuse, and many of other people who have suffered have been cheering on Theslet and Clemene for standing up for themselves,” said Pearson about other members of the local Haitian-American community.
WAVY did reach out to Nicholson and Parksley Mayor Frank Russell. Nicholson had no comment, and Russell referred us to the law firm the town’s hired, Virginia Beach’s Pender & Coward. They shared this statement with WAVY:
“We have been engaged to represent the Town of Parksley and Councilmember Nicholson. Our initial investigation has revealed that many of the factual allegations in the Complaint are simply not true. The food truck did not have all the permits required by the County and Town ordinances. These violations existed before and after the mentioned “food truck ordinance” which was rescinded after one month. Plaintiffs were advised of the process to follow to obtain the proper permitting but have elected to litigate instead. We expect to prevail once the evidence is presented to the Court in an appropriate manner.”
Richard H. Matthews and Anne C. Lahren
In response, Pearson said, “We have all the documentation. Once you see all the documents and the evidence, it’s pretty obvious what happened. What happened is you have a council member who thinks his position on town council allows him to take the law into his own hands. And you have other council members and city officials who knew he was out of control, and either egged him on or looked the other way … and not only did Councilmember Nicholson acted in some egregious and really outrageous ways, but the way the town escalated the problem in response to a letter from an attorney is shocking and appalling.”
You can read the full lawsuit here.
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