DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, MARCH 20, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 187
ONE DOLLAR
J.C. PENNEY CLOSURE
‘It’s like losing a friend’
Store’s customers
saddened by loss
of local mainstay
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
People walk by the J.C. Penney on Commercial Street Friday in
downtown Astoria. The store is slated to start liquidating its stock
April 17, and to close June 18. It is among 138 slated for closure.
J.C.
Penney
customers
expressed dismay over the closure
of the local branch, which cele-
brated its 100th anniversary last
April.
J.C. Penney Co. announced the
closure of 138 stores on Friday,
including Astoria’s and four others
in Oregon, as the company adjusts
to competition from online and
niche retailers. Astoria’s store is
expected to start liquidation April
17 and close June 18.
Employees have not been
allowed to speak with the news
media, but customers shared their
memories over the weekend.
“It’s like losing a friend,” said
Carla Pitts, who’s been shopping
at the downtown store since she
moved to Astoria in 1992.
Susan Jackson of Warrenton
said she was shocked after hearing
of the closure. “I remember sitting
down here selling Girl Scout cook-
ies” in grade school about 30 years
ago, she said.
See CLOSURE, Page 7A
Brewers and brew fans find bliss
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
A gillnet fisherman collects a fish into his
boat in August on Youngs Bay in Astoria.
Gillnet
harvests
trimmed
in summer
Commercial fishermen
given fall allocation
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Bureau
CORVALLIS — The Oregon Fish and
Wildlife Commission has voted unani-
mously to curtail gillnet fish harvests, alter-
ing an earlier decision that was more favor-
able to commercial fishermen.
Rules adopted by the commission in Jan-
uary retained use of the controversial fishing
method for Chinook salmon along the main
stem of the Columbia River during summer,
which conflicted with Washington state’s
regulations for the same water body.
The earlier rules also diverged from
Washington’s by allocating a larger pro-
portion of harvestable fish to commercial
fishermen.
See HARVESTS, Page 7A
Da Yang
violated
labor laws
Damian Mulinix/For The Daily Astorian
Logan Marks of Stickmen Brewing chats with patrons at Pouring at the Coast Saturday at the Seaside convention center.
Craft beer is the
star at Seaside
‘Pouring’ event
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
EASIDE —The “brotherhood of
brewers” was on display at the Civic
and Convention Center Saturday for
the Pouring at the Coast Craft Beer Festi-
val. Beer fans from throughout the Pacific
Northwest grabbed a glass and had a sip at
the fest, presented by the Seaside Chamber
of Commerce.
“This event is huge,” Logan Marks
of Stickmen Brewing Co., based in Lake
Oswego, said. “For a brewery our size, it
means the world.”
Marks was pouring Stickmen’s F1 IPA.
“We dry-hop it twice,” he said. “It’s super
S
aromatic, with a nice fruity body.”
Brent Nygard from RiverBend Brewing
Co. poured an oatmeal stout and an IPA.
A small Bend brewery with a capacity
of only 5,000 barrels, Nygard said the Sea-
side festival allows his brewery “to reach
out and get our beers out there.”
Local brews
Participants from Astoria included Fort
George Brewery and Public House, Buoy
Beer Co., Wet Dog Brewery, Reach Break
Brewing and Rogue Ales and Public House.
The South County was represented by Sea-
side Brewing Co., and Pelican Brewing
and Public Coast Brewing, both of Cannon
Beach.
Dan Hamilton founded Buoy Beer in
the garage of his house in Seaside. “It’s a
fantastic thing to see craft beer really bring
people out,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got
people of all ages and all taste-bud sets.”
Hamilton said Buoy Beer focuses on tra-
ditional European lager beers and North-
west ales. “We have some protocols in the
brew house that border on philosophy,”
Hamilton said. “We use extremely clean
yeast strains. The brewers are very dedi-
cated to making sure the beers are abso-
lutely balanced.”
Shaun Barrick, head brewer with Asto-
ria Brewing Co., said of Astoria’s six brew-
eries: “We all kind of fill a different niche in
the market and get along great, so the more
the merrier, as far as I can see. Craft beer
is such a great boon. It helps keep dollars
in local communities, it provides jobs and a
great outlet for creative energy.”
Barrick showcased the company’s Har-
bor Coffee Cream Ale and Slack Tide IPA.
Astoria fish processor
docked $60,000 in fines
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
One of the most creative pouring sta-
tions — and certainly the one with farthest
distance traveled —was Melvin Brewing
from Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Da Yang Seafoods, a fish processor on
the Port of Astoria’s Pier 2, has been fined
$60,000 for meal, rest period and overtime
violations.
The state Bureau of Labor and Industries
received employee complaints in 2015 and
started an investigation. Compliance spe-
cialists determined that between August and
October 2015, Da Yang failed to provide
meal periods to 146 employees on 1,393
occasions.
Da Yang also failed to provide rest peri-
ods to 77 employees on 213 occasions. On
40 occasions, the company worked employ-
ees in excess of 13 hours, violating maxi-
mum hour requirements for manufacturing
establishments.
See FESTIVAL, Page 7A
See DA YANG, Page 3A
Far and wide
Grant coordinator to focus on teen drug, alcohol abuse
Castaneda to
grow partners
with $125,000
annual grant
hen she worked for the
Pacific County Health
and Human Services Depart-
ment in Washington state,
Carly Castaneda was the
youth coordinator for Well-
spring Community Network,
a grassroots community
wellness group that received
one of the nationally cov-
eted grants from the Drug-
Free Communities Support
Program.
W
Castaneda said she wit-
nessed firsthand the effects
the grant had in helping bet-
ter organize local efforts to
help youths, leading to lower
rates of teen drinking and
more mental health counsel-
ors in schools.
Castaneda was recently
hired as the coordinator for
the same Drug-Free Com-
munities grant received by
North Coast Prevention
Works, through which she
will help better organize
efforts in Astoria and War-
renton to prevent teen drug
and alcohol abuse.
The five-year grant, worth
$125,000 annually with a
possible five-year extension,
pays for Castaneda’s salary
and to fund various partner-
ships, wellness campaigns,
training and education. Cas-
taneda is an employee of
nonprofit Warrenton-Ham-
mond Healthy Kids Inc., the
fiscal agent for the grant.
She said much of the
work will be to increase part-
nerships between existing
organizations and strength-
ening awareness of North
Coast Prevention Works. The
coalition formed in 2009 and
includes the Reduce Under-
age Drinking Task Force,
Tobacco Free Coalition,
Northwest Parenting, and
the Youth Suicide Prevention
Task Force. The group has
sponsored various substance
abuse prevention events
since the 2000s.
Quality of life
Castaneda said the grant
will focus on underage
drinking and marijuana use,
two of the most prevalent
issues locally and nationally.
Cutting down on bad behav-
iors isn’t about just telling
See CASTANEDA, Page 7A
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Carly Castaneda is the new coordi-
nator of a Drug-Free Communities
grant to help improve drug and al-
cohol prevention in Clatsop County.