It's been a surprising couple of days.
On Wednesday, we posted the picture of the "homo faget" graffiti that the bar was tagged with the day before. I added links to it on our Facebook page. That Facebook posting was shared by Michael Esswein to ABC 30 news. And, yesterday, Tommy Tran came out and interviewed Karl on camera and talked to both of us about the vandalism and the bar itself. He did an excellent piece. (Here's a link to the video: Gay bar vandalized in Fresno.)
He contacted Police Chief Jerry Dyer for comment. And Mr. Dyer apparently sent a couple of squad cars out to investigate the incident. The cops who showed up were, quite frankly, wonderful to deal with. We got assurances from them that, yes, they do care a great deal about the graffiti (regardless of what it says), and that they are, indeed, interested in helping to stop, what I'm going to call "Blight Crime" (Graffiti, prostitution, vandalism, etc.), in the area. Turned out to be an excellent introduction to the local officers. Both Karl and I look forward to working with them.
And, on top of the tremendous response, the roof trusses were installed and sheathing all put on, too. (Pictures of that in another post.)
All in all, it was a near perfect ending to one of the most imperfect weeks I've ever experienced.
I can tell you that I am delighted to have 100% wrong on my comment about the PD not caring about the graffiti. I was glad to see it got coverage on ABC30 too. I am on their Facebook, and was quite happy to see the comments left by the general public were probably 99% positive.
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