You might recall that just 10 miles south in suburban North Vallejo, around nine months ago, a police officer shot a local 18-year-old named Rogers Vaughn in the back as he tried to run away.

(The young man survived the shooting. Still, Vaughn’s attorney tells the Press Democrat that it’s been a “long road to recovery” for the now-19-year-old, including “walking for a while with a cane” and “a lot of mental and emotional injuries he’s also had to overcome.”)

By springtime, disturbing video footage released by the Napa County District Attorney’s Office — thanks to a record request filed by the Vallejo Sun — appeared to confirm that Rogers Vaughn had been armed with two guns as he tried to escape the cop who pulled him over. He could be seen dropping both as he fled, per the officer’s requests to “Drop the gun!” The officer shot him anyway.

Now, in a strongly worded announcement in support of the shooter, D.A. Allison Haley says she won’t be filing any charges. The officer’s “use of deadly force was reasonable and lawful,” she says. “Because of this, his actions were justified, and criminal charges against him are neither warranted nor supported by evidence. The District Attorney’s Office has reviewed the case and summarized the findings in a detailed report, which is being released today and can be found on our website.”

The officer in question is named Josh Coleman. He’s a member of the American Canyon Police Department, which is staffed and overseen by the Napa County Sheriff’s Department. And before that, he was a member of the Vallejo Police Department, where he had a history of pulling the trigger. From the PD:

Coleman’s hiring in Napa drew attention because of his history in Vallejo. He was in four officer-involved shootings in a period of about 3½ years there, from March 2013 through October 2016, according to a database built by the independent journalism site OpenVallejo.

The first of those shootings was a fatality; Coleman was one of three Vallejo cops who opened fire on William Heinze, 42, during an armed standoff on Sutter Street in Vallejo.

He also had links to the infamous “badge-bending” scandal, which involved allegations that some members of the city’s police force had a ritual of bending the tips of their badges after on-duty fatal shootings.

On that note: The NorCal chapter of the ACLU won a small victory earlier this month in the org’s ongoing battle against bad policing in Vallejo, when a Solano County judge ordered local police officials to release at least part of their investigative report into the “badge-bending” scandal. 

And just last week, ACLU lawyers took another dramatic step: They sent a complaint to the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Training and Standards, asking commissioners to full-on “decertify” nine current and former Vallejo police officers. On Thursday, the state agreed to investigate.

Officer Coleman isn’t named in the complaint, but some of his former colleagues are. The Vallejo Sun reports:

Those officers include current Vallejo police officers Colin Eaton, Jordon Patzer, Bryan Glick, Mark Thompson, and Jarrett Tonn as well as former Vallejo officers Anthony Romero-Cano, Ryan McMahon, Sean Kenney and Dustin Joseph, who later was hired by Fairfield police. All were involved in at least one fatal on-duty shooting. Kenney had three, all which occurred within three months in 2012. 

In a 49-page complaint, the ACLU said those nine officers “all have been alleged to commit serious misconduct in the use of deadly force that resulted in death or serious bodily injury” resulting in settlements of more than $13 million.

A local independent newsroom called OpenVallejo is tracking both of these ACLU campaigns closely; I recommend following their X feed for updates.

The industrial area of Napa that used to house the Kaiser Steel pipe-manufacturing plant was packed with crazed shoppers yesterday for the ceremonious sunrise opening of a brand-new local outpost of everyone’s favorite discount superstore: a 157,000-square-foot Costco warehouse at 280 Riversound Way. It will be Napa County’s first.

If we are to trust the giddy journalists and witnesses at the scene, this was the most exciting thing to happen to Napa since the Judgment of Paris. “Years of anticipation turned to reality on Friday morning as Costco opened the doors to its Napa store,” the Napa Valley Register reports. A photojournalist for the paper captured some pretty amazing shots of the morning rush.

Here’s another account from a Press Democrat reporter who had allegedly never stepped foot inside a Costco before yesterday:

A long line of shoppers, both local and from neighboring counties, had lined up for the opening. Famed UFC announcer Bruce Buffer, special guest for the occasion, cut the ribbon at 7:30 a.m. and people rolled in, led by whiskey enthusiasts who had been camping outside for three days to get their hands on low-priced special-edition bottles.

Located just off Highway 221 at the southwest corner of Kaiser Road and Riversound Way, the 157,417-square-foot warehouse boasts all the traditional Costco favorites — $1.50 hot dogs and Kirkland toilet paper — as well as an extensive wine and liquor selection.

It has a bakery, food court, pharmacy, optical department, hearing aid center, tire center and gas station, and is part of a 154-acre redevelopment of the former Napa Pipe plant along the Napa River.

“I’ve been waiting for years,” Napa resident Scott Simpson said as he stood in line with his cart.

Napa’s mayor, Scott Sedgley, tells the PD: “It’s exciting. The most asked question over the last year has not been when homes are going to be built or a highway project completed. It’s been — when will Costco open?”

And of course, this new Costco being situated in the capital of wine country, its wine section is unmatched, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The paper reports that Selman Medina, a “Bay Area Costco legend” who for more than a decade has been “commuting from Napa to work the floor of the wine section at the Novato Costco, widely believed to have the best wine section of any Costco in California,” is now bringing all this A game back home.

“Napa’s new Costco may have the nation’s best wine section, thanks to this employee,” the Chronicle reports. More from the story:

When Medina heard a Costco was opening in his hometown of over 35 years, he put in for a transfer. The wine selection at the new Napa store rivals Novato’s, said [Bay Area Costco wine buyer Mark Kalkbrenner].

“He built [the Novato] program up and really put wine stewards on the map,” said Kalkbrenner. “People love him and they come to see him. He’s extremely knowledgeable, charismatic and friendly. He’ll probably pull a lot of his members from Novato to Napa.”

In many ways, Medina’s job is that of a sommelier. He speaks with customers and recommends wines that he thinks they’ll enjoy. But he’s a welcome antidote to the flashy and pretentious sommelier stereotype. Dressed in khakis and an off-yellow, buttoned-down shirt with his “Selman” name tag pinned at the middle, he radiates approachability and appears the perfect mentor for the everyday Costco customer, largely because he is one. (It’s where he buys all of his wine, he said.) Madina is more than happy to talk to customers about spirits, too — rare bourbons were the big draw at the Napa opening, for which dozens of people camped out for days — but it’s clear his passion lies with wine. “What I like about wine is connection,” he said. “Wine is a perk. A reward.”

Oh and BTW, while we’re Napa wine-snobbing, here’s some more big industry news: The federal government just approved a new subregion for Napa wines for the first time in 13 years, the Chronicle reports.

These subregions are called “American Viticultural Areas,” or AVAs — and for connoisseurs, they can signal a lot about where a wine comes from and what went into it. This new one, a 230-acre zone in the foothills of Howell Mountain between St. Helena and Calistoga, is named “Crystal Springs.” Here’s some more insider baseball from the Chronicle:

It took the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) over four years to approve the petition for the new AVA, which Steven Burgess, the proposal’s author, said he’s been working on since 2005. The last AVA approved within Napa Valley was Coombsville in 2011.

Until now, wineries in this area have had to label their wines with the Napa Valley AVA, which encompasses over 120,000 acres. “If a wine bottled just says ‘Napa Valley’ on it, you have no idea what it’s going to taste and feel like,” said Burgess, the former owner of Burgess Cellars. “It could be red fruit, black fruit, soft tannins, brutal tannins — you have no idea.”

As ballots start landing in Sonoma County mailboxes for the 2024 General Election, politics are raging out in ag country. If you’ve driven around the county’s farmlands lately, you’ve likely noticed there are more “No on Measure J” signs dotting yards and fields these days than there are anti-Newsom signs on The 5.

So what are they all about? Measure J, reportedly authored by Bay Area-based animal and environmental activists, would ban large animal farms from operating in unincorporated parts of Sonoma County — specifically, farms that pack a certain number of animals into a certain amount of space, and ones that don’t follow rigorous disposal standards for getting rid of animal poop. There’s no official analysis of how many farms Measure J would affect, but FWIW, the folks who authored it have counted more than 20 local cow, chicken and duck farms they think meet the definition.

Along with all the yard signs, in-person Measure J rallies have been ramping up — on both the “Yes” and “No” sides. The two camps even held dueling protests in downtown Santa Rosa two weekends ago, according to the Press Democrat: 

On Saturday, opponents of the ballot measure said the proposal would hurt family farms, threaten jobs and the local agricultural economy. Supporters of the ballot measure, on the other hand, argued that the measure supports small farms, animals and the environment.

The day’s events kicked off with a No on J tractor parade followed by a pancake breakfast provided by the Professional Fire Fighters of Sonoma County Local 1401 union and a rally in Courthouse Square. About 200 people attended the rally. … The No on J event wrapped up at 12:30 p.m. Yes on J activists kicked off their activities shortly after at 1:15 p.m, also at Courthouse Square. From there, the crowd of about 100 people marched through downtown Santa Rosa and dropped a banner over a pedestrian bridge on Highway 101 near A Street.

The measure’s supporters argue that the way we’ve been farming at scale is cruel to animals and ruining our environment, to boot. Its opponents, for their part, argue that the particular definition of a “factory farm” laid out in the Measure J literature is murky and potentially quite impossible to abide by — fanning fear across the farming industry, and dependent industries like restaurants and tourism, that this initiative could cause the whole system to crumble.

At city halls across Sonoma County, elected officials have been coming out against Measure J, too. “The City of Petaluma published an online statement saying that the measure’s 45 days per year limit on confinement would make dairy and poultry farming at any scale impossible because ranchers must house their animals against the elements in the winter months,” the Bohemian reports.

Even far-left Cotati just joined the “No” camp, after holding out for a while.

There’s some big money behind both camps, according to another analysis by the Press Democrat: “The total of about $2 million pouring in — about 60% of it coming from outside Sonoma County — makes it clear that many see Measure J as potentially precedent-setting, whether their interest lies in animal welfare or the survival of the North Bay’s multigenerational family farms,” the paper reports. And KRCB news radio adds that these precedents could extend to the national level.

No pressure, y’all! Good luck parsing through the back-and-forth…

There’s been a big debate running for most of the year about whether the California wine industry is actually facing a downturn of doom. On one hand, the total valuation of the 2023 wine-grape harvest in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties smashed all previous records, and the local tasting-room count keeps ticking upward each year. On the other hand, new market reports keep showing that Americans are drinking less wine (especially young people; “Wine is not brat,” in the words of the U.K. Guardian), and for every new tasting room it seems we hear of another winery fire sale around here.

My favorite industry blogger, who I mentioned earlier — the inimitable W. Blake Gray — wrote last weekend: “We interrupt the ongoing reports that the sky is falling on the wine and spirits industry to bring you something new: The sky has already fallen. SipSource released a report today that showed wine sales from wholesalers to retail stores, restaurants and bars dropped 8 percent in the 12 months that ended August 2024.” And our local Business Journal reports: “The North Coast wine grape market is experiencing significant challenges as this year’s harvest season progresses. Growers and wineries are grappling with oversupply, reduced demand and pricing pressures. Industry experts and growers paint a picture of a market in flux.”

So anyway, to get ahead of the curve and fight back against the growing nonalcoholic movement, the wine industry’s PR mafia launched a flashy campaign this year called “Come Over October.” It’s clap-back to Sober October, which is gaining steam as a pre-holiday respite from drinking, not unlike the post-holiday Dry January.

The movement has some local perks, according to the SF Chronicle:

During October, Jackson Family Wines, which owns more than 25 California wineries and brands, is offering free tastings at seven of its estates: Napa Valley’s Freemark Abbey and Sonoma County’s Matanzas Creek, Siduri, Stonestreet, Copain, La Crema and Kendall-Jackson. The company is also hosting complimentary events, including two on Oct. 19 at Kendall-Jackson and Freemark Abbey. 

Jackson Family’s free tastings are part of a grassroots wine industry movement promoting the social benefits of drinking wine. Named Come Over October, it was created as a direct counter to Sober October, the lesser-known sequel to Dry January that encourages people to abstain from alcohol for a month. Come Over October doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as easily as Sober October, but the intention behind it is of urgent concern for the wine industry, because wine consumption is down and a sober movement has undeniably taken off. 

Never thought I’d see the day when coercion was needed to get everyone to sit around and get wine-drunk together! The official Come Over October website is a collection of inspirational wine messaging, a la:

• “Historically and socially, wine — a communal beverage — has played a role in facilitating conversation, nurturing new friendships, and deepening old ones.”
• “We believe that through the simple act of sharing wine, we share other things that matter — generosity, caring, and a belief that being together is an essential part of human happiness.”

Of course, Big Wine is all over this thing. “We’re thrilled to have Total Wine as a Benefactor for Come Over October!” campaign organizers wrote on Instagram in late August. “With a vast selection of wines from around the world and a commitment to helpful customers discover the perfect bottle, Total Wine has become a trusted name in the wine community. Their support means the world to us as we look ahead towards the start of October! Look for our posters and materials in 270 stores. Cheers to that!”