California looks to ban Confederate flag

August 27, 2014

CULLMAN, Ala. — California is looking to bar the “Stars and Bars.”

A bill sits on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk to ban California from displaying or selling the Confederate flag or objects with images of it. The state’s Legislature passed the bill nearly unanimously last week.

Assemblyman Isadore Hall III, D-Compton, introduced the legislation after his mother discovered the Capitol gift shop sold a replica of Confederate money that contained a picture of the flag, according to the L.A. Times.

The lone dissenting vote among the 67 cast was from former California GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks. He argued the bill would infringe on free speech.

“I’m a strict Constitutionalist,” he told the Times. “It’s painful and lonely.

Film at 11..... 🤦

It's beyond ridiculous.

I got this e-mail yesterday from Westover Winery, one of our local wineries in the Livermore Valley.

"Important Announcement

Westover to start process

of closing the tasting room and ending the C.O.W./P.L.O.W. clubs

We will start selling off inventory this weekend.

All wines will be at least 40% off and ports 50% off

until our inventories are liquidated.

Unless a miracle happens, we plan to go out of business December 24, 2014

Recently the labor department fined our winery over $100,000 for having volunteers serving our customers. There is a California State law 1720.4, which says, "volunteers are illegal in the state of California." Almost all wineries use volunteers for one thing or another and many are not aware of this law. We are not the first winery to be hit. It appears to many that our state is declaring war on wineries and other small businesses.

Bill spoke with state assemblyman Wieckowski, a former attorney and representative of Fremont and surrounding area. He stated he was not aware of the law and he could not think why the labor department wouldn't simply issue a cease and desist order to get things legal. He commented, "government should not be in the business to put small businesses s out of business."

We are also working with Assembly member Quirk and hope to meet with him in October.

What can you do?

Come by the winery and purchase wine - help liquidate our inventories so we can pay the outrageous fines. Our winery only grossed $200,000 last year and the penalties equal about 10 years of net profits.

Contact your local state assembly members and senators via both their website and telephone and ask them to introduce legislation to change the law in California.

What we are proposing for legislation:

A. Provide the same labor exemption for small wineries and businesses which are extended to non-profits and government entities which allows for volunteers in the State of California.

B. Make it law that the State of California must first issue cease and desist orders for small business violations and allow businesses to get legal before any fines. Only after they have been warned can they be penalized for further violations.

C. Require the State of California Department of Labor be proactive and go out of their way to do outreach, inform all businesses of the state law.

We will be open for our liquidation sale for the rest of the year, Saturdays and Sundays 12pm - 5pm and by appointment. We will also be open on Labor Day. We will be selling glasses of wine at 50% off and maybe a limited tasting list.

We appreciate your support. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Sincerely,

Bill and Jill Smyth, Owners

Westover Winery & Palomares Winery

34329 Palomares Road

Castro Valley, CA 94552"

As soon as I can, I'm out of this sh*t hole.

+1000

Some one had to correct it.

I think there is a lot more to the story here than what they are saying.

Not saying I'm in favor of what's going on, but I'm also not buying their "Poor us, we're innocent" shtick.

I don't know Adam. I'm going to check with a couple of the neighbors as they volunteer extensively with a couple of local wineries. We used to work events in the past and receive wine for our efforts but haven't for several years now.

As far as Westover is concerned, we've never volunteered there but it's a fun winery to visit and Bill has always been a straight up guy.

I wonder if it has to do with California bartending certification?

I've got a volunteer event coming up where we're serving beer at a festival, and everyone has to make sure they get their ABC certification prior to that. It's possible that the winery neglected to get their volunteers certified.

I don't know, just something seems to be missing from the puzzle.

Your situation is odd, typically beer & wine festivals have a 1-day site license that covers everyone.

So in the case of a winery, they would definitely require ABC training, right?

That sounds like something which could be easily overlooked when working with volunteers. Just guessing though.

Apparently California Labor Laws DO prohibit for-profit businesses from using volunteers. I suspect it's to keep people from getting around the other labor laws regulating minimum wage etc.

So the letter is correct (and regulating against volunteering is very weird in my opinion... they are essentially telling the volunteer what they can/cannot do with their free time. That's BS). HOWEVER... the letter seems to think that the business deserved some sort of cease and desist notice. Ignorance of the law does not mean someone doesn't need to follow it. I have a hard time believing they never looked into general labor laws in CA, and if they didn't then they are pretty poor business owners.