Benefield: Sonoma County teens spearhead local ‘Ask for Angela’ program

Alex Del Rosario, Jenna Townend and Lucia Fee don’t frequent bars. Or pubs. Or nightclubs.

Even so, they and a group of their still-in-high-school peers, are working to make these places safer, especially for women.

Townend, a senior, and Del Rosario, a junior, attend Montgomery High School. Fee, a junior at Tech High, as well as Sonoma Valley High junior Marisol Alvarez and Petaluma High sophomore Olivia Blaustein, have launched a local version of “Ask for Angela,” a program designed to give people, mostly women, a safe way to get out of situations in which they feel vulnerable — especially those around the consumption of alcohol.

The idea is this: put signs up in the restrooms of bars, pubs and restaurants alerting patrons if someone is on a date that has turned alarming or they feel unsafe in other ways, they can approach the bartender and ask for “Angela.”

It’s a code. Trained staffers will recognize the person feels unsafe and act accordingly whether it is calling a cab or the police or escorting the person out personally.

The program launched to some fanfare in England more than five years ago, but these students, as part of their work on the Junior Commission on the Status of Women, want to bring it to Sonoma County.

They are starting with businesses in downtown Santa Rosa.

“We don’t want women to worry about what is going to happen to them at a bar,” Del Rosario said.

But asking for help can be tricky. “Ask Angela” attempts to give people a discreet way of signaling that something doesn’t feel right.

It can be a situation of someone being intoxicated or aggressive or not being truthful in something like a dating app.

In some situations, signaling discomfort can trigger a predator. Ask Angela is meant to give people a way out without heightening any danger.

“We want to find a way to make it normalized to seek help,” Fee said.

And to make it normalized, they need to get staffers at bars and restaurants trained in what to do if someone approaches the bar and asks for Angela.

But how to do that when you are still in high school and you don’t frequent bars?

“Thankfully the people we have worked with so far are really understanding and respectful,” Del Rosario said. “We want to help and are able to help, it’s just our age we have to work around.”

The group reached out to both Chris Castillo, executive director of Verity, a nonprofit Sonoma County sexual assault crisis and support center, and Peter Rumble, CEO of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber.

From Castillo the group needed a way to implement a professional training program, and from Rumble they needed business partners willing to sign on to the “Ask for Angela” program.

And from both entities they got a resounding, yes.

“This is a way to continue to help people to be safe,” Castillo said.

Verity will supply to the trainers, but Castillo said the students are expected to drive this in the coming weeks.

Verity workers are not unfamiliar with this type of program. The organization led a similar program a number of years ago, offering training and things to look for related to date rape drugs and drink tampering.

These situations are not unheard of.

Just last month Healdsburg Police Department confirmed it has been investigating multiple allegations of drink tampering at Duke’s Spirited Cocktails.

As businesses are emerging from painful pandemic lockdowns, there is even more need for vigilance and education, Castillo said.

“We don’t want to revert to what once was,” she said.

It’s time for another round of training, and Castillo for one is heartened it is being championed by high school students.

“They want to do something for the broader community,” she said. “Also, it’s planting the seed for people who are staying here for college or going off to college.”

In the coming weeks, the group is expecting to coordinate training for a handful of businesses.

“It’s a great idea, great program, but you need someone on the other end to actually carry it through,” Rumble said. “They are needing some help connecting to those businesses.”

So Rumble is surveying downtown businesses, trying to sign some on and coordinating a central training session with Verity.

“We can’t really do every bar and restaurant member so we are taking small bites at a time,” he said.

Townend said simply launching training programs and getting people familiar with the concept is solid progress.

“At least getting the word out is the main goal right now,” she said.

To Rumble’s mind, it’s not only a good program but good business.

“I think this goes to the idea of businesses being socially responsible is good for business,” he said.

He likened it to a campaign a number of years ago that asked participating businesses to affix stickers to their storefronts indicating the business was “a safe place” for the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think it’s awesome,” he said.

Castillo agreed.

“For restaurant and bar owners to make a commitment, make a public commitment that they have done the training and committed to implementing the Angela project, it would get them good publicity and they would be held accountable too,” she said.

“I think this is a great step in responsible business ownership,” she said.

For Townend, who has been doing college tours in recent months with an eye toward where she will study in the fall, campus safety is at the forefront of many tours, conversations and questions.

“As a young woman growing up in society, I’m soon to be going into bars,” she said. “For me, it would be so beneficial as a community as a whole for women to feel safe and have options ... and make it more publicized so women would feel more safe.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.