A video showing employees of a local paint studio improperly disposing dirty water into a storm drain has prompted an online hate campaign against the store with staff now fearing for their personal safety.
Video footage, that has now been removed, appeared on Reddit and showed an employee of the ceramic and pottery paint shop on Main St pouring what appeared to be paint/glaze tainted water down a storm drain just a few feet from the store.
However, despite not offering any context or explanation to accompany the footage, users erupted at this apparent act of environmental sabotage, making all manner of threats against the store and its workers.
In response to the original video, the store owners promptly responded saying the incident was not in keeping with their store policies, that the action had been addressed with the pictured employees and that the store would work to address any environmental damage.
“We’ve been getting threats like saying we should kill ourselves, we should go fuck ourselves. People have been coming by and trying to threaten us as well. And there’s been countless threats on the internet, on Reddit especially, saying that they’ll throw rocks at our window and pour paint on our windows as well,” said store manager Adelaide Gault, 24, who was visibly distressed when she spoke to the Daily Press.
“These are the same idiotic liberals that preach about climate change and the environment,” wrote madvilliany123 on the Reddit thread.
“Maybe they know only how to color but not how to read,” wrote sarashootsfilm.
“SCUM. BAGS.” said National_Secret_5525.
“Close the business,” said product0.
“Let’s paint thier [sic] windows a nasty ass color and dump diarrhea outside the walking area infront of that store,” said AnxiousJournalist518.
Many made promises to leave the worst reviews possible on applications like Yelp and Google as an apparent act of revenge. However, a few Reddit users actually demonstrated a better understanding of the situation.
“No rage like redditors seeing something they think they know the whole story about. Thank you for taking responsibility and working to correct this, mistakes happen and I’m sure you’ll sort it out with the city,” wrote nabuhabu on a separate, but related Reddit thread.
“If that’s cermaics [sic] glaze and not paint, it’s fine glass/silica in water, usually non toxic (especially if used at a Color Me Mine), and inert. It’ll literally wash away and leave some green sand which is why they don’t put it down their sink,” said A_Nick_Name.
Gault said that she was actually off work the day that the incident happened and the employee, who has been at the store for over seven years, ultimately made a simple error in judgment. According to Gault, the paint is non-toxic and does not contain any harmful chemicals. Moreover, it was significantly more water than paint, since the employee was discarding water that had been used to rinse the receptacle.
“Unfortunately, the girl who was working put it down here [the storm drain] because she had these buckets of water that she was trying to pour [away]. We do have a sink with a trap, but the sink trap has to be cleared out because all the paint builds up, it’s clay, you know. And same with the glaze, it has clay in it. So, it builds up and hardens in our pipes … and water builds up and will come up in the sinks. So she was simply trying to avoid that,” Gault said.
“And that is nothing that we would never condone for someone just to dump something outside. That’s ridiculous, of course. But does it warrant this kind of abuse? I don’t think it does,” she said.
Oreo1299, the apparent initial poster of the original video has since removed it from the Reddit thread, saying, “It seems like this incident has lead [sic] to a resolution and it was a one off incident. I might del this post now that the issue has been resolved and came to reasonable [sic] resolution.”
Gault stresses that Color Me Mine is working closely with the City of Santa Monica and will happily pay the fines imposed. She also says that the store isn’t taking any disciplinary action against the employee, but she is absolutely distraught and wants to leave. As yet, no decision has been made as to whether they’ll accept her resignation.
“Our main thing next is to give back to the community, we want to reach out to Heal the Bay, we want to do something that can show that we’re not evil people, we want people to enjoy themselves and paint and have memories with their family. We’re not trying to be malicious and ruin the environment or destroy the oceans,” she said.
The store put out a statement on Facebook, saying, “In light of the recent video regarding our store and employees we’d like to issue an apology to the community of Santa Monica along with our customers new and old. This is an unfortunate situation in which we are handling not only internally but with the proper authorities as well. We are going to work as hard as possible to proactively enrich our community. But for this we are very sorry.”
Gault, a lifelong resident of Santa Monica, said that now she’s afraid of closing up the store on her own, but that the staff have rallied together to look out for one another. Because their personal safety has been threatened, a report has been made with the Santa Monica Police Department.
“I’m just really disappointed by it all. But it’s, well, sadly, it’s happened. What do we do now, other than putting out a statement saying how much we’re sorry and to not ever let this happen again is to show people that we are going to have the right measures in place, so this never happens again,” Gault said.
scott.snowden@smdp.com