The wine tour company criticized for removing a group of mostly black women ;from one of its trains on Saturday publicly apologized for the incident. ; In a statement Tuesday, Napa Valley Wine Train CEO Anthony Giaccio said the company was “100 percent wrong in its handling of this issue,” according to The Associated Press. ; “We accept full responsibility for our failures and for the chain of events that led to this regrettable treatment of our guests,” Giaccio said. Giaccio also said that he’ll offer additional diversity training to his employees. He offered the women 50 free passes for a future train trip. The book club, however, was not impressed. ; “You can apologize but …
The wine tour company criticized for removing a group of mostly black women ;from one of its trains on Saturday publicly apologized for the incident. ;
In a statement Tuesday, Napa Valley Wine Train CEO Anthony Giaccio said the company was “100 percent wrong in its handling of this issue,” according to The Associated Press. ;
“We accept full responsibility for our failures and for the chain of events that led to this regrettable treatment of our guests,” Giaccio said.
Giaccio also said that he’ll offer additional diversity training to his employees. He offered the women 50 free passes for a future train trip.
The book club, however, was not impressed. ;
“You can apologize but you can’t take away the experience we had,” Lisa Renee Johnson, an outspoken member of the book club, told the Contra Costa Times. “We were still marched down the aisle of the train car to waiting police officers. I’m still traumatized by the whole experience.”
Eleven members of the Sisters on the Reading Edge book club — all but one of whom are black — were removed from a wine train on Saturday after other customers complained that they were making too much noise. ;
The women felt they were singled out because of their race. ;
Johnson told an employee that she and her friends were behaving just like any other group on the train. ;
“She said people were complaining and I said, ‘Who’s complaining?’ And she said, ‘Well, people’s faces are uncomfortable,'” Johnson told the Napa Valley Register. “At that point, one passenger nearby said, ‘Well, this is not a bar.’ We reacted, ‘Yes, it is a bar, a bar on wheels.'”
Outrage spread on social media after the women shared their story. The hastag #LaughingWhileBlack trended as news of the incident spread. ;
Although the women were given a van ride back to Napa and a refund, Johnson demanded a public apology. ; ;
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Original post:
Wine Train Apologizes To Women Removed For #LaughingWhileBlack
