It’s now been a week since Charlotte’s biggest brewery was rocked by the bombshell arrest of its co-owner for alleged child sex crimes. The backlash against Sycamore Brewing has included bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and even the airport pulling their products. For the latest, I’m joined now by Ashley Fahey of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: What’s the latest at this point? And can you talk a little more about the backlash and how Sycamore is trying to mitigate it?
Ashley Fahey: It's been a really sort of swift response. Starting last week, we saw grocery stores from Food Lion to Whole Foods to Publix saying we are no longer going to be carrying Sycamore products on our grocery store shelves. From there, we've seen bars, restaurants, we've seen social media videos of people pouring Sycamore beer down the drain.
Others have said we are going to donate proceeds of any remaining Sycamore inventory to rape crisis centers. We're starting to hear maybe some distributors are rethinking their deals with Sycamore. This is important because the distribution network is everything for a craft brewery. I visited the taproom in South End, which on a normal weekend, there’s a lot of people there. Hundreds most Saturdays. I counted fewer than 25 people.
Terry: To be blunt, can Sycamore survive this?
Fahey: I think that's a very valid question. Justin Brigham, the co-owner who was arrested last week, his wife, Sarah Taylor, has removed him as a managing member of Sycamore Brewing LLC. I spoke to some attorneys who weren't familiar with the Sycamore situation specifically. Basically, they said it might be a little bit more difficult to sort of divest his interests from the business. Will Sycamore survive this? I think the next few weeks will be telling.
Terry: There’s another new bank uptown, maybe one with an accent? Tell us about the new Carolinas office that opened here.
Fahey: Yeah, so City National Bank, which is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada, they're moving their employees into a new uptown office at Trade and Tryon. It's headquartered in Los Angeles, but it is part of the Royal Bank of Canada. They're saying this is part of a long-term growth strategy, and I think it also underscores how we have a lot of established players here in Charlotte, but there's still a lot of new financial institutions that want to plant a flag here.
Terry: Over now to Carowinds, which has been slammed by the trade publication Attractions Magazine over its annual winter celebration. What’s the criticism there? And what does it have to do with the problems facing Six Flags, which is Carowinds’ parent company?
Fahey: Someone in Attractions Magazine said in years past, Carowinds’ WinterFest has been known for elaborate light displays, a parade, which is no longer happening this year, and the light displays this year are seemingly dimmer and not as elaborate.
They've relocated the Christmas tree away from the main area to sort of a side area of the park. I think what the writer was trying to get at is this might be an indication of all the financial challenges the parent company has been facing this year. It's interesting, though, and I think the writer kind of noted this, because this is one of the things that brings in people. Maybe you're trying to scale back on your spending, but there's a reputational aspect to this as well. They definitely were not shy about criticizing the lack of holiday cheer that maybe we see most years at Carowinds.
Terry: Let’s end this week on a growing trend in Charlotte that could come in handy this time of year for those whose stress level is higher than normal. What are rage rooms and why are they becoming more popular?
Fahey: They're still growing in Charlotte. We’ve caught wind of one that's opening in the spring in the University area. It's exactly as it sounds. It's a room where you can go in, take a sledgehammer, take a bat, and just go to town on destroying some appliances. Throwing plates at the wall. Maybe even hitting on a car, which you can do at the House of Purge here in Charlotte.
The long and short of it is a lot of people just need a place to kind of express their rage, maybe their grief. I did try one out as part of my reporting, and I will admit there was some catharsis there.
