A11
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2021
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BRIEFING
Owner of topless
bar arrested
The manager and
owner of a bar north of
Roseburg in Drain with
topless dancing are
facing misdemeanor
charges after deputies say
they violated liquor reg-
ulations.
Top of the Bowl had
been serving alcohol
without a liquor license
from the Oregon Liquor
Control Commission, the
Douglas County Sheriff’s
Office said in a news re-
lease on Monday.
The license was sur-
rendered in March after
COVID-19 violations and
a suspension.
Manager Rik Marin
and owner and bartender
Jamie Hennricks were
arrested early Saturday
and told deputies alcohol
was being served for tips
and donations, but with
a suggested amount,
according to the news
release.
Marin and Hennricks
face charges of mixing,
storing or serving li-
quor without a license.
It wasn’t immediately
known if they have law-
yers to comment.
Intel’s new CEO
restructures
New Intel CEO Pat
Gelsinger moved Tues-
day to put his mark on
the company, parting
with the head of its vi-
tal data center business,
promoting other execu-
tives and adding a chief
technology officer from
outside the organization.
Gelsinger split Intel’s data
group in two, dividing the
data center business from
its networking products.
Intel Vice President San-
dra Rivera will take over
the data operations while
Nick McKeown, who
joined Intel two years ago
through an acquisition,
while take over the net-
work platforms business.
Intel also announced
two new business units, a
software group and one
for high-performance
computing.
Additionally Tuesday,
Intel hired VMware exec-
utive Greg Lavender and
named him chief technol-
ogy officer. Gelsinger ran
VMware before becom-
ing Intel’s CEO last winter,
and earlier in his career
Gelsinger was the first In-
tel executive to hold the
CTO title.
New home sales
drop 5.9%
Sales of new homes
fell unexpectedly in May,
and the 5.9% retreat was
the second consecutive
monthly decline even as
the median price hit an
all-time high.
The May sales decline
pushed sales to a sea-
sonally adjusted annual
rate of 769,000, the Com-
merce Department re-
ported Wednesday. That
followed a 7.8% sales de-
cline in April, a figure that
was revised lower from
what was initially thought
to be a drop of only 5.9%.
The median price of a
new home sold in May
jumped to $374,400, up
18.1% from a year ago
when the median price
stood at $317,100.
A shortage of homes
on the market and rising
costs for materials like
lumber, and also labor, is
fueling the upward mo-
mentum.
The surge in lumber
prices has started to un-
wind. That could help
slow surging housing
costs, but the shortage of
homes to buy is still cre-
ating a very high bar for
potential buyers.
— Bulletin wire reports
POWER STRUGGLE
Competition between agriculture and solar energy facilities is heating up
About 600 acres of the project
are irrigated and half the associated
water rights can’t be transferred
elsewhere due to a lack of available
farmland, meaning that capacity
could be lost forever, said Dave No-
ble, a local farmer.
“That is some top-notch farm
ground for this area,” he said.
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
B
ONANZA — Nobody is
against solar energy — at
least, not in theory.
Solar power is often cast
in a positive light until a specific
site is chosen for a facility.
At that point, the proposed de-
velopment can seem like a dark
force to neighbors who fear the un-
sightly transformation of their fa-
miliar landscape.
“What’s it going to do to my
property values when I’m right
next to it?” asked Greg Thomas,
whose farm abuts a proposed
2,733-acre solar project near Bo-
nanza in Klamath County.
“All our property values are going
to go in the toilet. Nobody wants to
live next to a power plant,” answered
Tonya Pinckney, another neighbor
opposed to the facility planned by
developer Hecate Energy.
Local hostility
Local hostility to solar facilities
isn’t just a knee-jerk “not in my
backyard” sentiment in Oregon, a
Photos by Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Alyssa Andrew, an Oregon State University graduate student, visits with sheep
resting beneath solar panels at a campus facility in Corvallis.
state known for its rigorous protec-
tions against converting farmland
to other uses.
Opponents of solar facilities are
often strongly motivated by con-
cern for the agricultural economy,
which can permanently suffer if ir-
rigated acres such as those within
the Bonanza project are developed.
“Why do we have zoning laws?”
Pinckney asked. “If it’s zoned for ag,
how can they just take it out?”
Competing goals
Aside from preserving agricul-
ture, Oregon strives to be a leader
in promoting renewable energy to
reduce carbon emissions and fight
climate change.
Those two objectives are bound
to clash as solar energy production
takes off in the state, propelled by
economic forces as the technology
becomes less expensive to manu-
facture and install.
While it’s long been boosted by
tax credits, renewable portfolio
mandates and other government
incentives, the solar power industry
has now found its financial footing
and is expanding due to demand
from utility companies, experts say.
See Energy / A12
Dave Noble, left, and Greg
Thomas look out onto a neigh-
boring field where a 2,700-acre solar
facility is proposed near Bonanza in
Klamath County. Neighbors oppose
the project because it will take irri-
gated farmland out of production.
House panel
targets Big
Tech’s power
Federal jury
awards $2.4M
to fired sales
manager
BY MARCY GORDON
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A House panel
pushed ahead Wednesday with am-
bitious legislation that could curb the
market power of tech giants Face-
book, Google, Amazon and Apple
and force them to sever their domi-
nant platforms from their other lines
of business.
Conservative Republican lawmak-
ers haggled over legislative language
and pushed concerns of perceived
anti-conservative bias in online plat-
forms but couldn’t halt the bipartisan
momentum behind the package.
The drafting session and votes by
the House Judiciary Committee are
initial steps in what promises to be
a strenuous slog through Congress.
Many Republican lawmakers de-
nounce the market dominance of Big
Tech but don’t support a wholesale re-
vamp of the antitrust laws.
The Democratic-majority commit-
tee made quick work of arguably the
least controversial bills in the package,
which were approved over Republi-
can objections. A measure that would
increase the budget of the Federal
Trade Commission drew Republican
conservatives’ ire as an avenue toward
amplified power for the agency.
See Big Tech / A12
Former AstraZeneca
employee alleged retaliation
Bing Guan/Bloomberg
Customers are seated at a table at a restaurant in San Diego in April.
“We are going to be paying higher
prices in restaurants,” said David
Henkes, senior principal at industry
researcher Technomic. “Part of the
calculus right now is there’s proba-
bly some appetite of consumers to
pay whatever because they haven’t
been out for a while.”
Across the nation, prices for food
away from home rose 4% in May
from a year earlier, the biggest jump
since May 2009. It’s one example of
a surge in overall inflation that’s left
policy makers at the Federal Re-
serve debating how long the cost
pressures will last as the economy
bounces back from the pandemic.
A federal jury in Portland on Tues-
day awarded $2.4 million in damages
to a woman who said she was fired
from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals
for complaining about alleged mis-
leading marketing tactics.
Suzanne Ivie had worked at As-
traZeneca Pharmaceuticals for 19
years, most recently in Salt Lake City
as an executive district sales manager
within its respiratory products divi-
sion. Her district covered Eastern Or-
egon, Idaho and Utah. She was fired
on June 6, 2019, from her job, where
she made $223,000 per year.
AstraZeneca is a global, biophar-
maceutical business headquartered in
Cambridge, England, and is one of the
manufacturers of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The jury awarded damages after
finding the company violated the Or-
egon whistleblower protection law,
finding Ivie was fired after she made
a “good faith report” of alleged com-
pany misconduct.
See Restaurants / A12
See AstraZeneca / A12
Restaurants boost menu
prices to recoup costs
BY OLIVIA ROCKEMAN,LESLIE PATTON
AND MICHAEL SASSO
Bloomberg
U.S. restaurants, faced with higher
food and labor costs, are raising
menu prices at a much faster pace
than historical rates, insistent on
preserving profits after an arduous
year.
From local restaurants to national
chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill
Inc., owners have boosted prices by
as much as 5% in the past few weeks
alone. Even at fast-food companies
that were locked in price wars just
a couple of years ago to win over
cost-conscious consumers, increases
aren’t taboo anymore.
BY MAXINE BERNSTEIN
The Oregonian