Napa Town Center merchants revolted Wednesday morning, taking over the Visitor Center after it was locked overnight by the new leaders running the Napa Valley Conference and Visitors Bureau.

The rebels took down the closed sign, un-fired the 70 volunteers who had kept it running for almost two decades and announced that it would be business as usual for tourists looking for a place to eat, drink or sleep.

Tempers ran white hot among downtown merchants who accused the visitors bureau, now renamed the Napa Valley Destination Council, of staging a “coup” that left businesses in the lurch.

The abrupt closure of the Visitor Center was an “absolute shock to all of us,” said Sandi Perlman, who runs a gift store inside the center. Until she unlocked the center doors Wednesday morning, tourists were being turned away, she said.

The Napa Downtown Association and businesses in Napa Town Center propose running a visitor center themselves. They will ask the Napa City Council to redirect $100,000 that formerly went to the visitors bureau to help to pay for it, said Joe Salerno, a former association president.

If the visitor center were allowed to close, “it would be an utter disaster for downtown and the city of Napa,” Salerno said. “We can’t let it happen.”

A sudden move

On Tuesday, the council’s interim executive director, Jeri Gill, said the organization’s new board of directors had decided to break with the past and do tourist marketing a different way, announcing a new name and a revised mission that put more emphasis on a tourist Web site. She said the structure of the convention and visitor’s bureau, in which only about one-third of the tourism-oriented businesses in the county supported the organization or benefited from it, was not working.

The suddenness with which the CVB morphed into the Napa Valley Destination Council and shed its Visitor Center was shameful, said Jim Beazley, a B&B owner and former CVB leader.

Beazley said the new leadership carried out a “bloody hatchet job of a coup” without community consultation. “You’re talking about an elite group of people who had suddenly shuttered the CVB, fired the volunteers and fired the membership,” he said.

“This is going to be a peasant revolt. We’ll substitute pitch forks and torches for pens and the light of day.”

George Altamura Jr., whose family owns Napa Town Center, said he was appalled by the abrupt closure of the Visitor Center. When he talked to the destination council leadership last week, they said the center would remain open until November, he said.

For now, Altamura said will let the merchants run the Visitor Center rent-free. “We will do whatever we need to do to help out,” he said.

Altamura said the Napa Valley Destination Council’s leadership was weighted with Upvalley interests. “Do they care about downtown Napa or are they afraid of what’s happening to downtown? Is Napa taking business from up north?”

‘Support and surprise’

Gill responded to merchant accusations Wednesday afternoon. “I understand that they are upset and alarmed by the change. It’s a natural reaction,” she said.

The council’s new leadership had intended to consult with its membership and the community, Gill said. The council had to speed up things when news of the changes began seeping out, she said.

A blast e-mail went out Tuesday evening to the group’s 400-plus members explaining the organization’s overhaul and the Visitor Center closing, Gill said.

“We’re hearing support and surprise,” Gill said. “I’m just hoping we have a spirit of cooperation and we can talk about what is best for the community and the organization.”

The changes announced Tuesday had been under discussion for two months by the organization’s new board, headed by vintner Jack Cakebread, Gill said.

“Our board came in. We were asked to make change. We’ve clearly done that,” she said.

The intent had been to keep the Visitor Center open for additional weeks, but that didn’t seem feasible after center employees got their pink slips Tuesday, Gill said.

City officials and downtown merchants are organizing a meeting on Monday to talk with the Napa Valley Destination Council about the future, Gill said.

In shutting down the Visitor Center, the Napa Valley Destination Council intended to direct downtown tourists to the Napa Chamber of Commerce office two blocks away on First Street, Gill said.

The chambers of commerce in every Napa Valley city are more than able to handle walk-in tourist traffic, Gill said.

Downtown merchants dismissed this option Wednesday. “There isn’t enough room for 130,000 people to flow through their office,” said Salerno, citing the center’s annual visitorship.

The little parking that exists by the chamber office is pointed out of downtown, Salerno said. Businesses that depend on tourists would suffer, he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, one of the center’s fired employees, Ronnie Villegas, was back at work in the Visitor Center, this time as a volunteer.

“We seamlessly transitioned it,” Villegas said. “We are open for business as usual.”

Two other volunteers staffed the counter, marking road directions on maps and suggesting places for Napa Valley newbies to visit.

Merchants will ask the city to redirect its $100,000 bureau allocation so a Visitor Center can continue in the heart of downtown. Merchants may be able to tap a marketing assessment paid by downtown landlords to further enhance the center’s operation, Salerno said.

“We can do a better job, a more effective job than was being done,” Salerno said.

The Napa Downtown Association’s board of directors will hold an emergency meeting Friday morning to discuss what comes next, Salerno said.