He was elected in 1990 to the Santa Cruz City Council where his one term included a year as Mayor.
The shop which once had a water bed in the middle of it was already a place of interest when he and his late wife, Candy, who was pregnant then, took it over in the early 1970s.
He had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery at the Clovis Community Medical Center in Fresno, California.
[6] On 6 June 2006, facing two challengers, Chris Krohn and Jonathan Boutelle, Coonerty won the election with 58 percent of the vote.
[10] In June 2014, his son Ryan ran for election to succeed his retiring father on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors.