

Buckner (in red) and Ballard chat with Huie

At noon today, Pulaski County Treasurer Debra Buckner and Saline County Tax Collector Joy Ballard paid a lunchtime visit to Dizzy’s Gypsy Bistro near the River Market with the press in tow to pressure the restaurant to pay $936.43 in unpaid business property taxes left over from when Dizzy’s was located in Benton. Dizzy’s, located at 200 River Market Ave., moved to Little Rock in 2009. Buckner said the restaurant also owes “$500 and something” dollars to Pulaski County in 2010 taxes, and chastised Dizzy’s owners for bragging on their website that their sales were up three-fold since moving to Little Rock when they hadn’t paid their taxes in Saline County.

About 15 minutes after Buckner arrived in her red Cadillac with “TREASUR” license plates and led a group into the nearly-full restaurant, business owner Darla Huie showed up. After paying both Buckner and Ballard by check, Huie gave as good as she got, engaging in an argument with Buckner in which she reminded the treasurer of the thousands of dollars in taxes the restaurant has paid in during its time in Little Rock and calling the unannounced lunchtime visit by Buckner “terrorism by media.”