Utah nursery faces calls for boycott becasue its owner sits on MIDA board
The Salt Lake Tribune • • nation
Key Points:
- Box Elder County commissioners approved a large "hyperscale" data center project despite public protests, leading to social media calls for a boycott of J&J Nursery and Garden Center, owned by Sen. Jerry Stevenson, who sits on the approving board.
- The boycott campaign, gaining traction on Instagram with thousands of likes and hundreds of comments, criticizes Stevenson’s role on the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) board, which unanimously approved the data center project near the Great Salt Lake.
- Stevenson, a long-serving Republican legislator and former mayor of Layton, declined to comment on the boycott and emphasized that the nursery and its 200+ employees should not be targeted for his political decisions.
- J&J Nursery, a large family-owned business with over 100 acres of cultivation and more than 100,000 trees, urged the public to separate their feelings about the data center from the nursery employees, asking for respectful treatment.
- The boycott discussion has sparked significant public engagement online, with many commenters pledging to take their business elsewhere and others suggesting alternative local nurseries.
