4A
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2022
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Airbnb will no longer
show full names
Dianne Lugo
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
A new policy change means Airbnb
hosts will be unable to see the full names
of guests who are Oregon residents at
the start of the booking process.
By Jan. 31, hosts will see an Oregon
guest’s initials instead of the guest’s first
name until a booking request is con-
firmed, the company announced in a
statement. Hosts will see a guest’s full
name only after the booking is con-
firmed.
The update is the result of the compa-
ny’s settlement of a 2017 lawsuit in Ore-
gon and ongoing efforts to fight bias and
discrimination on the platform.
The lawsuit, filed by three Black
women, alleged the vacation rental site
allowed hosts to discriminate against
customers based on race by requiring
guests to disclose full names and pho-
tographs, in violation of Oregon’s public
accommodation laws. Airbnb reached a
settlement agreement in 2019.
A study by the Harvard Business
School in 2016 confirmed widespread ra-
cial discrimination on the platform.
Researchers found “requests from
guests with distinctively African-Amer-
ican names are roughly 16% less likely to
be accepted than identical guests with
distinctively White names.”
Airbnb announced a change to the
way the site displayed guest profile pho-
tos in 2018. Hosts were given the option
to ask guests to provide a photo and
would only display a guest’s photo after
the booking request was accepted.
“This announcement follows the
commitment we made in 2016 to evalu-
ate how we display guest profile photos
in the booking process,” said the compa-
ny in 2018’s announcement.
For now, the latest update will only be
for Oregon residents.
“This update is consistent with the
Demand for short-term rentals —
such as those offered by Airbnb — is
exceeding all expectations in 2021.
DREAMSTIME, MCT
voluntary settlement agreement we
reached in 2019 with individuals in
Oregon who raised concerns regarding
the way guests’ names are displayed
when they seek to book a listing,”
Airbnb said in the statement. “As part
of our ongoing work, we will take any
learnings from this process and use
them to inform future efforts to fight
bias.”
Implementation is limited because
the impact of this change is unknown,
Airbnb spokesperson Liz DeBold said
in an email to the Statesman Journal.
“We will evaluate the impact of this
change to understand if there are
learnings from this work that can in-
form future efforts to fight bias,” De-
Bold said.
Dianne Lugo is a reporter at the
Statesman Journal covering equity
and social justice. You can reach her at
dlugo@ statesmanjournal.com, 503-
936-4811 or on Twitter @DianneLugo.
Reopen
Continued from Page 1A
it more expensive.
“This injunction will likely result in
permanent closure of forest roads that
provide safe access,” said Nick Smith,
spokesman for the American Forest Re-
source Institute, a timber advocacy
group. “Taxpayers will also be stuck
with an even higher bill for post-fire
clean up. And, as these trees continue to
deteriorate, the dangers increase and
the forest workers tasked with doing
that clean-up will be put at an exponen-
tially higher level of risk, than if the
court had allowed them to do it now.”
“I have decided it is in the
best interest of the public to
limit the continued time and
expense associated with
ongoing litigation
surrounding this project. Our
work to safely restore public
access to areas burned in the
2020 Labor Day fires
continues to be top priority.”
Dave Warnack
Willamette National Forest supervisor
The sun sets over the Bull Complex's billowing heat pockets on the evening of
Aug. 24. US FOREST SERVICE
Heat
Continued from Page 1A
which is 88% of normal or the 30th
driest year on record in 127 years of da-
ta.
The Oregon Coast was actually wet-
ter than normal in some areas and
about normal temperature wise. The
Willamette Valley ended the year
slightly on the dry side — except in Sa-
lem — while towns east of the Cas-
cades saw some of their driest years on
record.
“That’s our other big picture con-
cern,” O’Neill said. “Both in terms of
observed data and some new studies,
there is evidence that the rain shadow
is intensifying, which would be bad
news for the east side of the Cascades.
“One worrying thing is that changes
in climate is happening faster than we
thought. It’s not clear if this is just a
rough couple of years or becoming a
normal cycle. The local-scale impacts
of climate change are the hardest ones
to resolve.”
(Story continues below)
Record-setting heat in the
Willamette Valley
Oregon’s valley cities generally mir-
rored statewide trends when it came to
heat. Many valley cities, including Sa-
lem, saw their hottest summer on rec-
ord and hottest temperature ever re-
corded, with Salem hitting 117 degrees
on June 28.
Those extreme highs fueled Port-
land and Eugene to the second-warm-
est years on record, at 56.5 and 55.1, re-
spectively, while Salem (55.8) had its
third-hottest year. All three were about
2.5 to 3 degrees hotter than a normal
year.
Public House
Friends in right places
Despite Norbury’s experience with
real estate and some cooking knowl-
edge, he knew he couldn’t do the entire
operation on his own. With the input
and help of friends in the bar business,
he got the space and started working to
open as soon as possible, including put-
ting his real estate work on the back
burner.
Redoing the space was basically a so-
lo task, since Norbury did not want to
deal with how long a contractor could
potentially need.
“I came into this April 2021,” Norbury
said, gesturing to the space. “I came in
with an empty box and repainted every-
thing; got brand new furniture, equip-
ment, rebuilt the bar, redid the back bar,
bathrooms - it’s basically a brand new
space.”
As Norbury was working away, a
thousand miles away in Palm Desert,
Dre Goyer got word of Norbury’s venture
from a mutual friend.
Goyer, Mt. Angel Public House’s con-
Rainfall closer to normal in W.
Oregon, dry in the east
Willamette Valley cities Portland and
Salem were right about normal in terms
of rainfall. Portland recorded 35.59
inches, compared to a normal of 36.88,
while Salem got 40.82 inches, slightly
above its normal of 39.92. Eugene was
drier with 36.10 inches for the year com-
pared to a normal of 43.92.
On the Coast, Astora recorded 77.02
inches of precipitation, well above its
average of 69 inches. East of the Cas-
cades, Pendleton (9.39 inches) and
Bend (6.90 inches) both finished with
their 10th driest years on record.
Medford recorded 16.14 inches of
rain, compared to a normal of 18.48
inches.
Oregon’s longstanding drought is
based on two years of below average
precipitation, a summer that saw al-
most no rain and above normal temper-
atures that sapped moisture from the
soil. In the future, Oregon is expected to
see hotter and drier summers but also
wetter and warmer winters, a trend that
was generally observed this past year.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors re-
porter in Oregon for 15 years and is host
of the Explore Oregon Podcast. To sup-
port his work, subscribe to the States-
man Journal. Urness is the author of
“Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hik-
ing Southern Oregon.” He can be reached
at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or
(503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at
@ZachsORoutdoors.
The Future Beckons
Continued from Page 1A
product shortages, supply chain delays
and general anxieties of opening a busi-
ness.
Norbury wasn’t anticipating getting
into the food industry, but “kind of came
into it.” Norbury is a real estate agent
with Soldera Properties and when he
came to the space he was actually intro-
ducing it to one of his clients.
The client was on the fence about the
property, but one of Norbury’s col-
leagues asked him why he didn’t start a
bar in the space himself - thus launch-
ing Norbury into developing Mt. Angel
Public House.
One of the pillars of the bar Norbury
decided on was being service-oriented.
As a retired Navy sailor and active fire-
man for the Gresham fire department,
Norbury wanted to make it a space for
folks, especially servicemen and wom-
en, to connect.
Out on the Coast, Astoria was exactly
normal at 51.2 degrees while east of the
Cascades, Bend (49.5) and Pendleton
(53.9) had their sixth and 12th warmest
years on record, respectively.
Medford, in southern Oregon, re-
corded an average temperature of 57.7,
the fourth warmest on record.
Dre Goyer and Brandon Norbury prepare orders in the kitchen at Mt. Angel Public
House on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022 in Mt. Angel, Ore. ABIGAIL DOLLINS / STATESMAN JOURNAL
sultant, became friends with Norbury
about six years ago. Goyer worked at La
Quinta Brewing Company when they
first met, and is a certified cicerone, also
known as a “beer sommelier,” and won
local competitions for his chili recipe
and bloody mary mix.
“When (Norbury) asked me to help
out, I packed up my stuff and drove 1,100
miles up and started working the next
morning,” Goyer said. He officially
joined Norbury at the beginning of Sep-
tember, and since then he’s worked at
the bar six days a week.
Goyer also has a background in ser-
vice, specifically as a retired Marine.
The two joke about how their back-
grounds in different branches of service
sometimes cause them to butt heads but
also complement each others’ work-
style. Their background is also why they
emphasize wanting to create a space for
community building, especially for
folks in service.
Digging in, Reaching out
With Goyer on board, they managed
to get enough of the business sorted to
have a soft opening just in time for Ok-
toberfest in mid-September. After going
virtual last year, folks were excited to
have the annual festival back in-person
even with the heavy rain.
“It helped people get a chance to get
out of the rain and for us to introduce
ourselves. Since then, we figured we
should keep our door open when we
would be working on stuff, and a person
would come in here or there,” Norbury
said.
One thing folks may notice when
walking in is the interesting memorabil-
ia or signage on the walls. Fun fact: if
you have something you think would be
interesting to display, ask Norbury or
Goyer and potentially get it up on the
walls.
Nobury gestured to a row of baseball
articles mounted on the far wall, and
said those were on loan from a commu-
nity member who said it’d be “cool to
have up.” And ever since, they’ve ac-
cepted a few other signs and interesting
plaques to be hung.
With décor, equipment and supplies
mostly taken care of now that they’ve
opened, the two have a lot they’ve al-
ready got rolling out in the new year.
One of the programs Norbury has set
up is the Veteran’s Tab. Dedicated to
folks who want to chip in as little as a
dollar toward buying entire drinks, this
is set aside for veterans to get a free
drink when they come in, as a thanks for
their service.
Once folks finish ordering their
drinks and food, they’ll be briefed on the
tab’s purpose and asked if they’d like to
contribute.
Another activity they’re still organiz-
ing is a veteran social hour once a
month, which Norbury said was not just
for folks to socialize but get help if they
need help, or meet others in the field “if
needed.”
Outside of veteran-centric activites,
the Public House has organized and
planned paint nights with Chic Skape,
the coffee shop and boutique from down
the street, and game nights.
In addition to activities, they’re hop-
ing to showcase local breweries to folks
through a monthly series they’re calling
“tap takeovers.”
“We’ll get different local breweries to
showcase many of their beers on a
monthly basis,” Nobury said. “Other
bars usually get one (type of beer on
tap), but we’re gonna make this a place
they can bring five, six or even seven of
their beers for folks to see what they
like. (What we’re wanting to do is) more
than what most people can get outside
of individual breweries.”
Goyer also said in addition to serving
up as many local brands as possible, Mt.
Angel Public House is also starting to
brew its own line of beers starting Janu-
ary. Since the space itself isn’t large
enough for an in-house brewery, the
Public House is partnering up with Fly-
boy Brewing in Tigard to get its start.
Like the Public House, they are also vet-
eran-owned.
“We’ll have a wheat, IPA, winter sea-
sonal and a lager,” Goyer said. “We’re
looking at the end of February, early
march for our first round of beers.”
Address: 210 E Charles St, Mt Angel,
OR