Out-of-town competitors are rankling local businesses by deceiving customers, but new legislation may stop the practice.

Meanwhile, at least one local mom and pop shop said a non-local competitor using their name has hurt their reputation.

In 2010, Sanner's Perry Hall Florist will celebrate a half-century of business.

Before the shop was built in 1960, Ken Sanner's grandfather was growing flowers and selling them out of an East Joppa Road farmhouse in Perry Hall.

"The old farmhouse is still there," said Ken Sanner, who owns the shop with his wife, Kathy.

But in May 2004, the Sanners discovered they had an unlikely competitor -- a faceless business in Wisconsin posing as a Perry Hall flower shop.

A local phone number, listed next to "Perry Hall Florist" in phone directories, was connecting callers to a processing center in Wisconsin, and customers were receiving sub-par floral arrangements.

"They were just very inferior to what the Sanners did," said state Sen. Kathy Klausmeier, who has introduced a bill to the state Senate to fight the practice. "I just really felt strongly that we should help them out."

"Back when I was just a kid, they were there -- I bought prom flowers there," she said.

The senate voted 40-5 last month in favor of Senate Bill 10 and now the house of delegates will take a turn with the bill.

Damage is done

Yet, for the Sanners, the damage is already done.

In the 2008-2009 Verizon Yellow Pages for greater Baltimore, one entry says "Perry Hall Florist" and another says "Perry Hall Florist Inc."

The first lists its address as "Perry Hall".

The second listing, the Sanners', has a specific street address.

Written testimony from Kathy Sanner in support of Klausmeier's bill explained that she and her husband realized something was wrong when a long-time customer came in with flowers that weren't up to standard.

The customer's daughter was out of town and had lost the Sanners' business card, so she called 411 for "Perry Hall Florist." She was given the number 410-488-2010, according to Sanner's testimony.

"They took her order and credit card number and processed the order," Sanner wrote. "Her mother came into our shop saying, 'I received this from your florist, but I know this is not typical of your work.'"

The Sanners sat down with a reporter in their flower shop Feb. 26 to tell their story.

"She knew right away it wasn't us," Ken Sanner said.

The Sanners called the police, who traced the phone number back to a Verizon building in the Frankford area in Baltimore, where calls were being forwarded to Waukesha, Wisc.

In fact, 410-488-2010 can be found in Verizon's phone book under listings for Dundalk Maryland Florist, Essex Maryland Florist and so on, from Glen Burnie, to Towson.

"He had 17 listings for 17 different florists -- it was all the same number in Wisconsin," Ken Sanner said.

But why should customers care where they get their flowers from?

Ken Sanner explained, "It would be like if you called your favorite pizza place and they delivered your pizza, and you opened it up and said, 'This is awful', and you take it back to the place you thought you ordered it from and they say, 'We didn't make this'."

"Our reputation is really important," Kathy Sanner said.

While the flowers were ordered through a Wisconsin company, local florists would still be the ones providing the arrangements or bouquets.

So, who was filling the orders and delivering the flowers?

"We have never found that out," Kathy Sanner said.

Poor quality flowers

Though one of the Sanners' customers spoke up, there may be others who ordered over the phone, didn't get the quality of flowers they expected and decided never to go back to Sanners, even though the Sanners' flower shop had nothing to do with the order.

"We don't know how many people called that guy," Ken Sanner said.

"That guy" is James Possi of Waukesha, Wisc.

But Possi doesn't think he did anything wrong.

"Over-protecting, over-regulating is not good for anybody," Possi said when a reporter called him March 5.

When asked why he listed himself as a florist in our area Possi said, "small businesses like me have to use their imaginations."

"Anybody that asked me if I was located there (in Perry Hall), I would deny it," he said.

'I do not cheat anybody'

Possi added, "I do not cheat anybody -- I do not lie to anybody."

In a letter dated May 7, 2004, the Verizon District Appeals Office told Possi, "In accordance with local practice, if a listing in any of our directories is challenged, the customer being challenged must provide a business license from that state (Maryland) that grants the customer (Possi) permission to do business in that name, hence allowing the customer to list the business in any directory."

Sandra Arnette, Verizon's district manager for media relations, would not say whether or not Possi ever presented the requested business license.

She said she could not give information about a specific customer's account because the information is proprietary.

Arnette did, however, share the workings of listing businesses in a telephone directory.

"If a customer is not local to the directory he/she wants to be listed in, our contact centers will establish a foreign listing into the directory for that customer," Arnette said.

"These listings must adhere to tariff requirements," she said.

According to Arnette, state tariffs require that a listing in a telephone directory "is a name the party is legally authorized to use," and "is a name which is not misleading, deceptive or confusing to the public," among other criteria.

It would seem then, that listing a business as "Perry Hall Florist" without a business license in that name, and doing so when that business is not in Perry Hall at all, would leave Verizon no choice but to remove the listing.

According to Kathy Sanner's testimony, the Maryland Attorney General's Office helped have the phone number disconnected.

Raquel Guillory, a spokewoman for the Attorney General's Office, said the office had no record that Verizon was "forced" to disconnect the number.

The office may have "mediated" the dispute, however, Guillory said.

Of course, with the huge quantity of listings in a phone book, Verizon would be hard-pressed to find every listing like Possi's without the help of people like the Sanners.

So Klausmeier has a suggestion for local businesses whenever new phone books are delivered.

'Look at the numbers'

"I recommend (business owners) look at the numbers and make sure they're proper," she said.

And not just florists. According to Klausmeier's staff, the listings are a problem for locksmiths and other local businesses as well.

In the meantime, Klausmeier hopes the bill will pass the House of Delegates.

"I'm just trying to help the little guy," Klausmeier said.

The language of Senate Bill 10 states that a person is in violation of the law if that person "causes to be published in a local telephone classified advertising directory an advertisement that misrepresents the location of the person; or causes to be listed in a local telephone directory a telephone listing that misrepresents the location of the person."

The bill defines its use of "person" as "an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, two or more persons have a joint or common interest, or any other legal or commercial entity."

Any person found in violation would be given a chance to argue their case, but if they lose they'll be fined up to $500 per violation.

If the bill passes the house and is signed into law, it would take effect in October.

Laws aside, the 2009-2010 Verizon phone book came out in March with no listing for "Perry Hall Florist."

Instead, the Sanners' flower shop -- that is, the real Perry Hall florist -- can now be found under the listing "Sanner's Perry Hall Florist."

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