🍺 *drinks craft beer once* CEO does a Racism

Plus Coronavirus testing dries up, International students in danger of deportation and the Fresno Police reform commission finally meet publicly.

☀️ Good mornin’, Fresno! It is Sunday, July 12, 2020.

It is hot y’all. And my Internet is out at my house right now until Monday. So I’m out here mooching off some Starbucks wifi to write this newsletter for y’all to write this newsletter. It is currently 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I am melting. Stay cool out there!

-Ram 🧡

Fresno By Five

🍺🤬 The Racist CEO In Town

• Florida CEO that visited a Fresno taphouse has resigned after a video of him shouting racial slurs at the bartender went viral.

• On Tuesday, July 7, Jason Wood, CEO of digital marketing firm Actionable Insights, refused to wear a mask and had a little too many craft beers at Out of the Barrel Taphouse, and bartender Rebecca Hernandez tried cutting him off.

• Wood became very mad and proceeded to shout some expletives such as calling her a “Sand n-word” and equating her to “dumb Saudi Arabians.”

• The whole situation was recorded by Hernandez and posted on her social media accounts and you can see for yourself below:

  beccahhrose

  Last night Jason Wood came into the bar I work at with a group of friends. I knew that after the 5th time of trying to enforce a mask policy, which he never wore, this person was going to be an issue. After using the bathroom I walked in on my coworker attempting to cut him off. Jason, was very persistent which is something we see a lot. My coworker did everything right but after hearing no several times Jason starts to get aggressive. He starts trying to bribe us, saying that he will give us $100 dollars if we just poured him a beer. We politely decline his money and stand our ground. He of course did not like this. Two female bartenders telling a middle aged white man he can't have something he wants and he can't buy it either must have really hurt his ego. At this point, being the most experienced in the industry and dealing with cutting customers off I step forward and address the situation head on. This is where things take a turn and being a person of color comes into the conversation. I closeout Jasons tab and tell him to please leave the bar and that we could care less about the tip he promised us. I then become extremely uncomfortable and start to feel unsafe so I begin to record him. Like so many others, we are tasked with filming our own abuse to prove that it actually happened. He threatened to ruin my life and take down my place of work. In the video you can hear him call me a “dark haired sand ni**er” and claims that I’m “stupid like Saudi Arabians”. See, without any indoor bar seating there is no one around and people have become more comfortable being their real self around us. For Jason Wood, it clearly is rascist. This man claims to “run the internet” and as the CEO and President of Actionable Insights, there probably won’t be any consequences for his racist actions. But I hope sharing this can be a lesson to others, it doesn’t matter how much money or power you think you have, it clearly can’t buy you dignity. And for others working in the service industry dealing with the COVID-19 mask enforcement and emboldened racists, don’t be afraid to stand up to these people, you are human first and foremost and no one deserves to be treated this way.

  July 8, 2020

• Wood resigned shortly after, just a few days after he issued an apology. He said that “he had never had craft beer before” and says he’s not a racist.

• However, FOX26 has apparently uncovered that in 2019 a former account manager for his company filed a lawsuit alleging that Wood discriminated against the women in his company. Allegedly, he would call them dumb and morons and force them to work through lunch. So, he might not be racist but he might be sexist. Or both! 👀

😷 Coronavirus Updates: Testing Dries Up

• As of July 11, the most recent data available at the time of writing, there have been a total of 8282 (+2,172 from last week) total confirmed cases and 88 (+11) deaths in Fresno County. Another record-breaking week for most new cases since the start of the newsletter with the most deaths reported for the week. A total of 1,871 (+502) people have recovered and 394 (+61)  have ever been hospitalized.

• Testing right now is in short supply. We’ve plugged the LHI.care website that offers free Covid testing. Fresno County’s Interim Health Officer Dr. Rais Vohra said that testing has now reverted back to testing symptomatic people for the three Optum testing sites within Fresno. The closest testing sites for asymptomatic that are open for appointments are in Hanford and Mariposa.

🤦‍♂️ Local Restaurateur Being a Baby

• Local Restaurateur David Fansler, the owner of Pismo’s, Westwoods and Yosemite Falls, is making a big fuss that his big, garage-style windows for his restaurant do not satisfy state requirements for outdoor dining.

• He posted a whole novel on Facebook saying he is being singled out by the Fresno County Health director Pomaville and snitches on other restaurants and bars not complying with regulation.

• Fansler has kept his restaurants and dining room open despite one of his employees testing positive for Covid-19 and getting five citations from code enforcement.

🧊International Students at risk for deportation

• International students enrolled in college in the United States will have to leave the country if their universities switch to online-only courses or risk deportation, lmmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Monday.

• According to the press release, nonimmigrant F-1 (student visa) students cannot take a full course load online but if it’s a hybrid of online and in-person they can only take one class or three credits online. Which makes no sense… during a pandemic… wheere going to class literally endangers them…

• The State of California has filed a lawsuit challenging the decision citing that it endangers these students to coronavirus and will already hurt the budget of schools with these students leaving.

• Fortunately for our local international students, Fresno State will offer in-person classes. Here is a list of classes for international students to take. If you know an international student, please forward this email to them or share this post:

  Yas @FresYas

  Fresno State IN PERSON classes Fall 2020!!! Please share this list with INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS!! Let’s look out for these students in our community!!!

  

  

  

  

• Fresno Pacific University students should not be affected that much as they are offering classes in-person this fall. Fresno City College, however, is going fully online next semester. FCC president Carole Goldsmith released this statement:

  Fresno City College @fresnocity

  STATEMENT from President Dr. @DrGoldsmith777

  

🚓Police Commission Meet Publicly for the First Time

• The Fresno Commission on Police Reform had their first public meeting on Monday via Zoom with public questions being answered at the end.

• The commission raised concerns on the 90-day time span that Fresno City Council President Miguel Arias set for their report. Commission chairman Baines will be asking for more time for the commission as all the commissioners have other important committees they serve on.

• To break up the work, Baines created four subcommittees focusing on different areas of police reform — community input, community development, police training and policy, and budget.

• During the Q&A portion, GVWire asked about a controversial tweet that was sensationalized in the San Joaquin Valley Sun. For some background, the commission’s second-in-command, Sandra Celedon, tweeted this during the Minneapolis protests back in May:

  

  The San Joaquin Valley Sun article implies that it was an attack on the Fresno Building Healthy Communities nonprofit, which Celedon is the CEO. It’s really a bad article, in my opinion, and the Sun is no stranger to making a big deal out of single tweets for articles. That last link is literally one of the worst articles of local news ever. No cap.

• During the meeting, Celedon refused to answer, calling it an “asinine question” and she would love to talk personally to David Taub, the GVWire reporter that asked the question, in her off time and teach him some American history. Damn 😳

💲The Block Sale Must Go On

• Despite the pandemic, the annual Harvard Avenue block sale still went on today despite government officials like Fresno Councilmember Esmeralda Soria urging folks not to attend. As with every event, social distancing and other safety precautions were present. Only 10 people in a yard were allowed at once. There were safety enforcement officers present but no violations were handed out. One person was very sad the “tamale lady” did not go. I am very sad for them as well.

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And don’t forget to register to vote… Kanye said so

ye @kanyewest

To vote click below vote.org/register-to-vo… #2020VISION

This newsletter was edited by Tommy Tribble (@tomiiwrites on Twitter) but he does not take responsibility for the ellipses in this email… Ram added those…