The White woman who pretended to call the police on an eight-year-old Black girl who was selling water outside her home is facing severe backlash for her actions.
Alison Ettel has apologized for her behavior this weekend when she threatened to call the police on Erin Austin’s daughter, who was selling water without a permit across from San Francisco’s AT&T stadium. Austin had recently lost her job and her daughter was trying to raise money because she wanted to go to Disneyland.
Video of the incident shot by Austin went viral over the weekend, with Ettel earning the nickname #PermitPatty. And the backlash has now affected Ettel’s marijuana business, TreatWell, which sells cannabis products for pets and humans. TreatWell’s Yelp page has been bombarded with negative reviews, ABC7 reports.
Other Bay Area dispensaries have also started pulling her products from their shelves.
“We just thought it was the right thing to do. All of us owners are born and raised in San Francisco and we still live here and we have families,” the owner of Cannabis retailer Barbery Coast told SFGate.com. “San Francisco has always been a very diverse community with pretty much everybody living in the city. We support the diverse community.” says Jesse Henry, one of the of the dispensary.”
Ettel shed a tear in an interview with Today, saying that she’s been getting death threats since the video was posted. She also denies that the incident had anything to do with race, instead pointing out that it was a noise issue.
“I tried to be polite but I was stern,” Ettel said. “And I said, ‘Please, I’m trying to work. You’re screaming. You’re yelling, and people have open windows. It’s a hot day. Can you please keep it down?’”
She earlier told the Huffington Post that she only “pretended” to call the police.
“It was stupid,” she said. “I completely regret that I handled that so poorly. It was completely stress-related, and I should have never confronted her. That was a mistake, a complete mistake. Please don’t make me sound horrible.”
As for the trip to Disneyland, musician Jonathan Brannon saw the story and has already paid for Austin’s daughter and three of her family members to go whenever they’d like.
“I didn’t do this for recognition or notoriety for my music. I just felt like it was the right thing to do, trying to right where I saw a wrong,” Brannon said in a statement on Twitter. “I want to wish 8-year-old Jordan and her family all the best and I hope they have a magical time at Disneyland.”