Latest news with #Backdraft
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Norfolk firefighter who lost his job over medical marijuana use challenges firing after change in Virginia law
For as long as he can remember, Brandon Beltaine wanted to be a firefighter. He grew up watching the 1991 film 'Backdraft' and took pride in people who worked hard. 'There's not people that work harder than those who are trying to save somebody's life,' Beltaine said. Beltaine attained that dream, completing the fire academy and started working as a Norfolk firefighter in 2018. But Beltaine's career is now in jeopardy. He was fired in 2023 for medical marijuana use off the job — a dismissal that would now be illegal under changes made to Virginia law last year. In an effort to get his job back, Beltaine has filed a grievance with the city challenging his firing, which will be heard this week. He argues the city unfairly targeted him and he was protected by a policy the city changed after he informed them of his medical cannabis use. Beltaine detailed a timeline of events related to his medical marijuana use and firing and provided The Virginian-Pilot with copies of Norfolk human resources polices related to substance abuse in place at those times. According to the policy documents provided, medical marijuana use was not a fireable offense at the time Beltaine alerted the city to his medical marijuana use in 2022. Rather, updated policies show the city changed the policy to forbid medical marijuana in 2023 after interactions began between Beltaine and human resources workers. The documents show the policy was changed yet again in July 2024 to allow employee medical cannabis use after Beltaine's firing. The city declined to comment on Beltaine's firing but argued the policy forbidding medical cannabis was communicated to employees in mid-2022, despite not becoming a written policy until May 2023. Marijuana is still a Schedule 1 substance under federal law, which forbids its manufacture, distribution, dispensation, and possession. However, the drug became quasi-legal in Virginia in 2021, when former Gov. Ralph Northam signed a law making possession of up to an ounce of marijuana legal. Still, retail sales of cannabis remain illegal under state law. A separate medical marijuana program was initially established for epilepsy patients in 2015 and expanded to other conditions by the legislature in 2018, according to the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority. Patients can receive a certification from a medical practitioner and then purchase cannabis from a state-licensed dispensary. Beltaine, who struggles with depression, anxiety and ADHD, said he self-medicated with alcohol for years before getting sober. Other treatment for his depression and anxiety, like the medicines called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, caused side effects like gastrointestinal issues and problems with thermoregulation. After receiving his medical cannabis certificate in May 2022, Beltaine said the substance helped him relax in the evenings after a stressful shift at the fire station. But issues with the city began almost immediately. In August 2022, after Beltaine emailed the city informing them of his medical card, a city official emailed back saying the cards would not be exempt from the city's substance abuse policy, according to a city-authored timeline Beltaine provided to The Pilot. The position came despite a city policy enacted in July 2021 that said medical cannabis was not a violation of the policy per se, but should be communicated to the city's human resources department. Beltaine said he was following that policy by sending the August 2022 email notification. Beltaine remained transparent about his medical marijuana use with the city but declined to stop, believing he was protected by the city policy. In May 2023, Beltaine noted on a yearly physical that he used medical cannabis. After a positive drug test, the city instructed him to again stop using the drug. After declining, Beltaine was fired in October 2023. Also on a May 1, 2023-dated document, the city updated its substance abuse policy to include medical marijuana as a fireable offense. However, Beltaine said the old policy allowing medical marijuana was still online until at least May 12, 2023. The amended document cites federal drug laws and the possibility of losing federal grant money as reasons for disallowing medical cannabis. In an emailed statement, the city said even though the policy was not changed in writing until May 1, 2023, it was effectively changed in mid-2022, around the time Beltaine first contacted human resources. 'Employees were advised that the policy document itself would be updated to reflect that the use of medical marijuana was not permissible,' according to the statement. Beltaine did not dispute the city's account, but again noted it took months for the written policy to be updated. State law on the issue was also evolving as Beltaine challenged city policy. A 2021 state law protected private sector employees from retaliation for medical marijuana use, but the law unintentionally left out public sector employees, according to bill sponsor Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax. The General Assembly opted to close that loophole and passed legislation in 2024 that protected public sector employees from retaliation for medical cannabis use. 'Virginia law is clear in providing explicit employment protections for medical cannabis patients,' said Virginia NORML Executive Director JM Pedini in an email. 'No employer is permitted to discharge, discipline, or discriminate against an employee for their lawful use of medical cannabis.' After the law went into effect in July 2024, Norfolk changed its policy on medical marijuana yet again. The city confirmed it reverted back to asking medical cannabis patients to contact the city human resources department. Other Hampton Roads cities also have policies that comply with the state law. In Chesapeake, fire department policy states that the city won't discipline, discharge or discriminate against employees' lawful use of cannabis oil as long as they have a valid written certification from a health care practitioner. Those who have a valid written certification are still subject to the city's reasonable suspicion, post-accident and random testing procedures. In Virginia Beach, the drug policy is similar, stating that the city will not discharge, discipline, or discriminate against an employee for the lawful use of cannabis as prescribed in the medical cannabis program. Portsmouth's administrative manual also authorizes medical marijuana with written certification for treatment. Kurt Detrick, district representative for the Virginia Professional Fire Fighters union, said he's seen firsthand how medical cannabis can help reverse alcohol and drug abuse among his profession and aid with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. 'There are some reasons for it that are helpful, and they're being responsible with it, and Brandon was being responsible with it,' Detrick said. Beltaine is still fighting for his job. He will attend a grievance hearing with the city on June 4. If he is unsuccessful, he said he plans to file a civil suit. 'They teach us that we're supposed to have integrity,' Beltaine said about continuing his fight. 'It's one of our core values.' Trevor Metcalfe, 757-222-5345,
Forbes
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Scenes From A Cinematographer's $7 Million LA Hilltop Home
High above the city's restless grid, a Beverly Hills hilltop residence turns Los Angeles into its own widescreen film, where every sunrise, email and swim feels like a scene-stealing shot. Why do we crane our necks toward the ridgeline, yearning for a house that brushes the clouds? Maybe the urge to survey danger still thrums beneath our ribs, or maybe we just like the thrill of looking down on the city's quickened heartbeat. Whatever the reason, the pull endures. Some simply call it a view. In Los Angeles, it's more a storyboard. Here, a window isn't just glass but a lens through which the city's perpetual script unfolds, frame by light-shifting frame. In a place that measures life in scenes, such a sweeping outlook turns idle seconds—pouring a coffee, letting the dog out—into moments of cinematic grandeur. At the property's edge, boundaries dissolve. Water, canyon and western sky fuse into a single, unbroken plane. Perched on a serpentine road above Beverly Hills, 1665 Summitridge understands that impulse with auteur precision. Its owner, cinematographer-turned-director Mikael Salomon—the visual mind behind The Abyss, Backdraft and episodes of Band of Brothers—knows how one frame can carry an entire plot. From his ridgeline property, the frame is Los Angeles itself: first the Holmby treetops, then the Santa Monica crease and finally the cobalt coast. On clear mornings, downtown towers seem to float. At night, the grid glows like scattered sequins. It's a scene that refuses to cut away. Spanish Revival isn't just wardrobe—it's the entire set, with interiors playing the lead. Turn the camera around and the home itself is a splendid scene. The hillside residence wears vintage Spanish Revival attire—barrel-tile roof, white stucco, arched openings. Completed in 1976, the 5,000-square-foot structure dodged the glass-box fever that later swept the hills. Yet it never fossilized into nostalgia. Its Revival touches—exposed beams, beehive fireplaces, hand-painted tiles—now feel fashion-forward again, trophies of texture in a city rediscovering tactility. And the winner for best view? The primary-suite balcony wins the Oscar for horizon drama. Fitting for a filmmaker, the interiors revel in sightlines. Twenty-two-foot ceilings lift the living room into cathedral-like scale, a lofted workstation perched overhead like a director on a crane. Three tall French doors form a tidy triptych, steering eyes to a saltwater pool poised on the cliff's lip. From the living room, a single arched corridor threads through the dining space and into a renovated kitchen, a visual dolly shot halted only when pocket doors slide shut for intimacy. Options of open or closed, spectacle or secrecy, speak to a faith in hidden spaces. Everyday acts become, if not extraordinary, at least worthy of a close-up. A paneled door beside the kitchen reveals a climate-controlled vault for four hundred bottles. Behind the main living area, a fireside den doubles as a snug retreat. A generous balcony off the primary suite, invisible from the motor court, becomes the favored perch for morning planning and evening reflection. Even the pool equipment hides below grade, sparing the ear its mechanical drone. Arched openings frame more than rooms; they stage sweeping long shots down every corridor. Then there's the theater—not a perfunctory bonus room but a subterranean chamber dropped three feet below grade to create true stadium seating. Fifteen speakers lurk behind acoustic fabric; nine sit directly behind a woven French Screen Research surface that lets full-range frequencies glide through untouched. Matte panels shift from Academy to CinemaScope widths with the deference of a seasoned stagehand. Added on to the home's original footprint, the theater is a bold sequel. Yet the house is hardly a shrine to gadgetry. Materials matter as much as tech: hand-troweled plaster, polished hardwood, hand-hewn wood pillars. Wrought-iron banisters trace the second-floor gallery and exterior balconies. Terracotta tiling rings the saltwater pool and wraps into an alfresco kitchen built for late-summer grilling. Newer builds crowd the ridge, glassy and grand, but few achieve such authored coherence. Each shift in the sky provides a new act: morning haze fades in like soft focus, noon snaps to razor clarity and sunset rolls the credits in liquid gold. Summitridge is less an object on display than a stylish frame through which the city below is edited, enlarged and—on special evenings—soft-focus perfect. It stages daily rituals—morning emails from the mezzanine, an eight-o'clock screening, a midnight swim—as if they were scene work. Everyday acts become, if not extraordinary, at least worthy of a close-up. 1665 Summitridge is on the market for $6.95 million with listing agent Nichole Shanfeld of Carolwood Estates, a member of Forbes Global Properties, an invitation-only network of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Retail shops not yet seeing major impact of tariffs
KINGSPORT, Tenn. (WJHL) -The latest tariff increase from the Trump administration has small businesses worried about increased prices. However, local retail shops like Backdraft Custom Apparel in Kingsport say they haven't seen major increases, at least not yet. Backdraft sales manager Shawn Burdge described it as 'still up in the air.' He told News Channel 11 that the store gets most of its products from wholesalers who are also having to make adjustments. 'One of the wholesalers we found out actually only sources about 9% from China,' Burdge said. 'Just actually today they said that they are ceasing production in China and going to source elsewhere or within the U.S.' Local hemp business owners discuss plans after Tennessee Senate passes bill banning most THCA products SanMar is one of the wholesalers Backdraft uses. SanMar sent an email explaining that all foreign countries are subject to a 10% base tariff and that it would absorb as much of the increase as it can by negotiating with its factory partners. 'We do know a lot of the wholesalers and manufacturers seem to have told us that they're eating some of the tariffs,' Burdge said. 'They're trying to make it easier on small businesses.' Backdraft's biggest challenge as of Friday is that larger companies are buying up all the supply before the rates increase even more. 'A number of companies like us that rely on wholesale products are buying and rushing the market and buying up all the supply that we currently have, which is increasing lead times,' Burdge said. 'And it just makes it difficult to get some products at all.' Burdge said it will be hard at first because U.S. products are still at a price disadvantage, but he believes the tariffs will be effective in the long term, as most of his customers want to buy U.S. products and support local small businesses. 'We have seen a steady increase of where local people want to do business with local companies,' Burdge said. 'We've had support by the city of Kingsport. They have told all their departments, 'Hey, buy local if you can.' And that's nice to see. It's really important for any area that you live in that you try to support local, small businesses.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
