A drunken marketing CEO from Florida went on a racist tirade, calling a bartender a “sand n—er motherf—er” — after being cut off and refusing to wear a mask at an establishment in Fresno, California, this week.
The Fresno Bee reports: It happened Tuesday night at the Out of the Barrel Taproom in Fig Garden Village after employees informed Florida businessman Jason Wood that he had been cut off from purchasing alcohol and asked him to leave. Wood, president and CEO of the digital marketing firm Actionable Insights, called Out of the Barrel bartender Rebecca Hernandez a “Sand (expletive) mother (expletive).” Hernandez wrote on social media that she started video recording the incident because she felt uncomfortable and unsafe and “tasked with filming our own abuse to prove that it actually happened.”
Here’s how Hernandez described the incident: “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.”
Wood later told the Fresno Bee: “I feel awful about the whole thing. We had seven or eight beers. It knocked me out. I don’t remember any of that. When I saw the video, my jaw just dropped. I was a jerk. I don’t talk to people like that. I’m not that type of guy. … I’m not a racist. What I said didn’t even apply to her. I would’ve had a better grasp on the vernacular if I was a racist. I was that blacked-out drunk. I feel awful for the things that I said. I’ve been the guy that shares stuff (on social media) when someone else has made racist comments. So I understand everyone’s reaction. I get it. But this was me doing something wrong. The business did nothing wrong. That was Jason with too much craft beer.”
Watch Hernandez’s video in two parts below.
