The story of 11 mostly Black women kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train has gone viral, to the chagrin of the company. According to members of “Sistahs on the Reading Edge Book Club” another passenger had claimed they were laughing too loudly during the wine tasting trip. The women were then marched through multiple rail cars as they were removed from the train and greeted by police at the next stop. The entire incident launched the #LaughingWhileBlack and made headlines across the country.
Now Napa Valley Wine Train CEO Anthony Giaccio has issued an apology to the women. “The Napa Valley Wine Train was 100 percent wrong in its handling of this issue. We accept full responsibility for our failures and for the chain of events that led to this regrettable treatment of our guests,” he said. Giaccio also apologized for Facebook posts that described the women as being “verbally and physically abusive” to train staff. The group of women ranged in age from 39 to 85 and one member even walks with the aid of a cane.
However, the organizer of the trip, Lisa Johnson, was not pleased with Giaccio’s statement. “You can apologize, but you can’t take away the experience we had. We were still marched down the aisle of the train car to waiting police officers. I’m still traumatized by the whole experience,” she said.
Johnson has organized trips for the past 17 years to the California wine region but this was the group’s first trip on the Napa Valley Wine Train. “There are a lot of firsts in your lifetime, and those memories stick with us. Our first experience on that wine train is one that will live with us forever. I can’t see us going back on that train,” Johnson said.
Giaccio has offered to give the group an entire rail car if they choose to give Napa Valley Wine Train a second chance as his personal guests.
