Gounardes and Lander Grandstand on Employee’s Mistake at a Small Business in Brooklyn
Author, Joshua Leifer was supposed to talk about his new book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life on Tuesday, August 20th at POWERHOUSE Arena Bookstore in DUMBO, Brooklyn.
Right before the event, an employee at POWERHOUSE Area Bookstore told Leifer that his event was cancelled.
Most of social media was supportive of the author when he shared the cancellation:
One bookstore invited Leifer to have his book event at their bookstore:
Senator Andrew Gounardes saw his friends tweeting about the topic and condoned the bookstore without finding out what actually happened.
Gounardes didn’t take the time to find out what happened and instead grandstanded on an employee’s error at a bookstore because he wanted to play on social media. Andrew Gounardes is in Greece for his brother’s wedding. (See here) If he didn’t have the ability to contact the bookstore, then Gounardes shouldn’t have tweeted until he did.
NYC Comptroller’s Brad Lander was at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Like Gounardes, Brad Lander decided to be a bandwagon jumper and tweet about the cancellation. Lander could have taken ten minutes to call PowerHouse Arena Bookstore and ask them what happened instead of grandstanding on an employees error.
Brad Lander didn’t even know that he has tagged the wrong business in the tweet be. Powerhouse Arena is @POWERHOUSEArena not @PowerhouseBooks
Thousands of people in Brooklyn and New York City saw Senator Gounardes and Comptroller Lander’s tweets. These elected leaders thought this was okay to do to a small business. Playing on social media and hurting a small business over an employee’s mistake is not right.
On August 22nd, Powerhouse Arena Bookstore explained that one of their employees cancelled the event. They quickly fired the employee. (Read Powerhouse Arena’s explanation here)
Update: On August 23rd, the Jewish Book Council announced an event for Joshua Leifer and Rabbi Andy Bachman on Monday, August 26th. (See event)
Hugs,
marlene
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