Asheville spared amid NC sports boycott over HB2
ASHEVILLE – The dominoes began to fall Sept. 12, the day the NCAA announced it would pull seven tournaments from North Carolina in protest of legislation limiting protections for transgender people.
Two days later, the Atlantic Coast Conference, which in North Carolina includes UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, N.C. State and Wake Forest, deepened the blow. It would move all its 2016-17 events from the state.
But in Asheville, the town where a gay pride flag once hung from City Hall and bumper stickers read, ‘Y’all means all,” the tenor was different.
Here in this mountain city, where the Register of Deeds Office stayed open late just to be one of the first places in the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, many begged the Southern Conference to keep its annual March basketball tournament in Asheville.
Don’t punish the diverse and inclusive people of this city for action taken in Charlotte and Raleigh, they said.
It worked — for now.
The tournament, which brings an estimated $3 million-$4 million a year to the region, is back in Asheville this weekend despite failed efforts to repeal HB2.
An estimated 500 athletes and 30,000 fans will compete and occupy seats in the U.S. Cellular Center for the annual sporting event, filling up hotel rooms and racking up restaurant and bar tabs.
“If you see somebody getting bullied, you don’t walk away from it,” said Michael-David Carpenter, president of the Blue Ridge Pride board of directors, which puts on Asheville's annual Pride Festival, a grassroots celebration of the LGBT community. The affair features education, arts and entertainment downtown.
Carpenter lobbied for the tournament to stay. But not everyone shares his view.
While it is true the players and the bulk of the battle is in Raleigh and Charlotte, that doesn't mean the fight shouldn’t also happen here, said local transgender activist Allison Scott.
“How are we going to put pressure on them,” Scott said, “if we don’t put pressure on them?
“I hate for businesses to lose money. I don’t want anyone to lose money, but are we ranking money above civil rights?”
A national boycott
Months before Southern Conference made its decision to keep its tournament in Asheville, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2, which requires that transgender people use restrooms in public buildings that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates.
The law also blocked local anti-discrimination protections from covering sexual orientation and gender identity, and limited local municipal control over things like minimum wage.
The action was a response to Charlotte lawmakers, who weeks earlier after listening to public comment for more than three hours, voted 7-4 to add LGBT people to the list of classes protected against discrimination in the city.
Within days, businesses were calling for a boycott of North Carolina. Artists and entertainers from the authors of children's books to Bruce Springsteen canceled visits to the state. Companies like PayPal reversed plans for expansion. The Obama administration filed a lawsuit.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost along with thousands of jobs.
Transgender activists in Asheville begged City Council to act with Charlotte. The Campaign for Southern Equality provided a white paper of legal options for the city to consider.
Yet, nearly a year later, the legislation remains in place, leaving legislators scrambling to find a bipartisan solution.
The North Carolina Sports Association, which represents 27 counties that recruit and promote major sporting events, sent a letter to the state House of Representatives and General Assembly in February urging an immediate repeal.
The "window to act is closing rapidly," wrote Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance executive director Scott Dupree. North Carolina is "on the brink of losing all NCAA Championship events for six consecutive years."
The letter cites 133 bids submitted to the NCAA by North Carolina cities, colleges and universities and estimated $250 million in investment.
The decision
Once the NCAA and ACC announced their decisions, the pressure was on the Southern Conference to reveal its plan fast, said John Iamarino, Southern Conference commissioner.
“The spotlight was on us, and we felt like we had to expedite the process,” he said.
The Southern Conference Council had planned to discuss HB2 at its November meeting. Instead, Iamarino, who had been planning a trip to Asheville, encouraged supporters on the ground to organize an emergency meeting.
What the Southern Conference offered Asheville that other cities didn't get was time, said Demp Bradford, executive director of the Asheville Buncombe Regional Sports Commission.
The nonprofit has a vision of hosting memorable sporting events in the region to enrich the lives of athletes and spectators.
It helped organize the Sept. 20 discussion at the U.S. Cellular Center with executives from the Southern Conference just days after the other tournaments decided to leave the state.
Around 30 people, including representatives from area business, government and LGBT organizations, attended.
It was free and open discussion, said Bradford. “That was the key for this event staying here, just the level of respect in that room that day. It was overwhelming."
"No one in the room stood and said this event needs to leave Asheville," he added. "Different people had different perspectives. Those perspectives were all listened to. There was never debate in the room. Everyone in the room had an opportunity to speak and talk and they were able to ask questions."
Allison Scott, a transgender woman who is the advocacy and media director for Tranzmission, a local nonprofit advocating for the lives of transgender people, said no one invited her to attend.
“The bold action at the time would have been to stand in that room and stand in front of people and say Asheville is not more deserving of this than any other town in North Carolina with this law still on the books,” she said.
But conference organizers say that statement never came from the government, private sector and LGBT activists they consulted.
The message was nearly unanimous, said Iamarino. People wanted the Southern Conference to stay. Spending money in Asheville, they said, was a way to help the fight against HB2.
Iamarino took what he learned and brought it back to the Southern Conference's member schools. They held a two-hour conference call. It was the longest phone call Iamarino had ever been on with the presidents and chancellors.
Nobody dropped off the call, he said. "It's obviously a very emotional, political subject, but the group did a great job of not making it personal.”
There was never a vote, Iamarino said. The Southern Conference simply came to consensus that it would stand with Asheville while standing against HB2. Community leaders were behind it, in particular members of Asheville’s LGBT community.
It might have been different had it been any other city, he said.
The 2017 decision isn't binding, Iamarino added.
After the dust settles this year, conference leaders will re-evaluate whether to stay in Asheville, he said. They will want to know: Have there been any protests at member schools? Were there demonstrations? What's going on with HB2 now?
A hometown agreement
The decision to stay was made by the Southern Conference Council, a team of 10 university and college chancellors and presidents.
Western Carolina University and UNC Greensboro are the only North Carolina schools in the Southern Conference. Other schools in the league are Chattanooga, The Citadel, East Tennessee State University, Furman, Mercer, Samford, the Virginia Military Institute and Wofford.
Asheville has hosted the SoCon basketball tournament consecutively since 2012 and is scheduled to keep the event through 2021.
SoCon first came to Western North Carolina in the 1980s, but as the condition of the U.S. Cellular Center started to deteriorate, organizers began to look elsewhere, Iamarino said.
Asheville pushed hard to get it back, he said. In 2012, the city won a bid against five other municipalities for a three-year agreement.
The Southern Conference could have backed out of that contract after the first year, but the city did what it promised, Iamarino said. They improved the seating, lighting, the locker rooms, the ribbon board and the restrooms, among other things.
People worked tirelessly to bring the tournament back to Asheville, said Terry Bellamy, who was mayor at the time. "Everybody put something in the pot to make it sweeter for them," she said.
Since the tournament's return, nearly $14 million has been allocated through city, county, Tourism Development Authority and private sector funding to improve the U.S. Cellular Center and attract and maintain customers like the Southern Conference, said Chris Corl, general manager of the city-owned facility.
That started as an initial $12.9 million investment over three years and added up with smaller allocations over time, he said. Recent support from the Tourism Development Authority means an additional $3.3 million will go toward making more upgrades in the coming years.
The partnership between the Southern Conference and Asheville is exactly how such a business arrangement should go, Iamarino said. The tournament is held in a prime location with a facility on par with national standards and the city benefits from the athletes and fans during the first months of its tourist season.
Asheville is a city that prides itself on being unique, diverse and inclusive, Iamarino said. SoCon has taken no complaints of discrimination during all its time there.
Plans were already in the works to ensure there would be a gender neutral bathroom at the U.S. Cellular Center by the time Iamarino spoke to the Southern Conference Council, he said.
The Blue Ridge Pride Center was set to be the beneficiary of a percentage of beer sales at JamFest, a free concert that takes place at the U.S. Cellular Center during the SoCon festivities. Fans who bring donations of nonperishable food items can receive a $5 off general admission to one of the games.
The bustling tourist economy offers SoCon's athletes and fans things to do outside of the arena, and the community has done everything it can to bring people court side, Iamarino said.
This year, for example, local schools have again partnered with the Southern Conference and the Asheville Buncombe Regional Sports Commission to bring some 4,500 students to the tournament for free.
"That's all very important to us," Iamarino said. "We're not the ACC and we're not the SEC. We're not going to get 15,000 people to come to a game, so we want to make it the kind of experience our athletes and fans like."
Asheville, he said, has become SoCon's second home.
The Asheville effect
The Southern Conference deciding to stay in Asheville was a historic moment that included decades of work, said Bellamy, who encouraged the Southern Conference executives not to boycott in 2017.
"They made a community model out of Asheville and said we believe in Asheville and your brand and we want to stay in this community because you are welcoming," she said.
"Asheville is a place that has prided itself to be more opening and accommodating than most places," she said. "That record stood on its own."
It was difficult for the city to find the right balance, said current Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer. Do we support a boycott to send a message to Raleigh and sacrifice this positive thing, or do we try to distinguish Asheville from the rest of state?
The decision to push the Southern Conference to stay came rather quickly, she said. "We wanted to set an example for how a community can be safe and welcoming for everyone."
If there was anyone to deliver the message that members of Asheville’s LGBT community wanted the conference to stay and would benefit from its economic impact, it was Yvonne Cook-Riley, then the executive director of the Blue Ridge Pride Center.
Cook-Riley is a transgender woman who sits on the city’s Civic Center Commission and contracts with the Asheville Downtown Association. She made an impassioned plea at the September meeting.
“If I thought we in the mountains, Asheville, Buncombe County, were capable of taking a hit financially, if the Civic Center could take the hit financially, and it was not going to do harm, I would be supporting the boycott,” she said.
“But then again I sit on the Civic Center Commission, I am a commissioner of that building. I have a vested interest in saying that facility needs to be used to promote the $3, $4 or even $5 million of business that SoCon represents," she said.
This decision impacts all of Western North Carolina not just its LGBT community, added her colleague, Michael-David Carpenter, the president of the Blue Ridge Pride Center board.
Asheville is on the right side of history, said Carpenter, who is gay, gets paid to host LGBT and other events around town, and works at the Hilton Garden Inn hotel.
Carpenter wrote a letter to the Southern Conference Council asking them to stay. He plans to sit in front row during the games this weekend.
“Asheville is not North Carolina,” he said “Things here are totally different than the rest of the state. We are very tolerant. We are a very diverse group of people. We accept people for who they are.”
The boycott that wasn’t
The problem, however, is that Asheville is part of North Carolina.
Economics are a powerful tool to fight injustice, said Scott, who can understand why city officials and community leaders didn’t urge the conference to leave, but struggles to understand why the Southern Conference chose to stay.
“Other conferences and business were doing it; they were showing it was possible,” she said.
Community organizer Brynn Estelle is a transgender woman who went to the meeting in April to ensure Tranzmission's views were represented.
She grew up in Western North Carolina’s mountains and has been an Asheville resident for five years.
By the time it was her turn to speak, Estelle said she was so upset the only words she could mutter were those of disappointment. It was like everyone had already made up their minds, she said.
“It was basically a room full of white people patting themselves on the back for how diverse and inclusive their town is,” Estelle said. “Everybody seemed to say HB2 is bad, and trans people are not bad, but I want to go see basketball.”
Estelle fears people are losing sight of the plight of transgender people, that they are favoring money, sports and business over individuals.
Asheville’s blinds itself to its own plight, she said. People are so convinced this is a progressive, liberal haven that they don’t see where they are falling short.
Transgender people have been fired in Western North Carolina for being who they are, she said. They struggle to find shelter and safe places to live.
When Estelle and others went around town after HB2 to find business willing to advertise gender neutral bathrooms, they got turned down more than most people in Asheville would like to admit, she said.
Three days after the Charlotte decision, the Campaign for Southern Equality and Equality North Carolina called on Asheville to pass similar protections for LGBT individuals. Several transgender people went in front of City Council to ask them to take a public stance of support.
The city, however, didn’t feel it was necessary.
Addressing concerns after public comment at a March City Council meeting, Manheimer said Charlotte had something to fix; Asheville, however, was not in that position.
The city already had nondiscrimination ordinances on the books, she said. "We determined that we didn’t have an ordinance that we need to fix like Charlotte did so there wasn’t any urgent action for us to take," she said.
It wasn’t until after HB2 passed that the city took a public stance and called for a “speedy repeal.”
“All these things are fresh in my mind,” said Estelle. “I don’t want to sacrifice anything for people. Solidarity isn’t a thing you can just claim. It’s earned and I think on the part of the city of Asheville there was real reluctance to earn that solidarity.”
“I would absolutely prefer boycott,” she said.
Friday’s game
As locals headed home from work Friday night, tourists buzzed around downtown with excitement. They had drinks in their hands and two Citadel fans cheered with blue and white pompoms.
Team banners and colored balloons hung outside the shops of the Grove Arcade. Men were selling tickets on the streets. Fans had lined up at the box office for their chance to see Western Carolina play the Bulldogs at 5 p.m.
H.P. Phipps and his wife, Susan, walked toward the arena. He wore a navy, white and gold scarf tightly around his neck. The two Boone residents are UNC Greensboro fans. They come to Asheville every year for the Southern Conference. This night, they are checking out the competition for Saturday's big game.
The couple have plans to go the Biltmore on Sunday and enjoy downtown's bars and restaurants.
One of their favorite spots is the Bier Garden, located less than a block from the U.S. Cellular Center.
Outside the restaurant and pub is a large banner that reads "UNCG Spartan Club. Welcome Spartan Fans."
On the other side of the door is a sign made by management.
"WE WELCOME ALL races ALL religions ALL countries of origin ALL sexual orientations ALL genders. We stand with you. You are SAFE here."
There is also a pink and blue window decal, showing both the male and female figure often used for restroom signs. "Yes, You Can Go," it reads. "Inclusive restrooms."
HB2 is discriminatory, Phipps said. "North Carolina needs to get rid of that bill, just clearly repeal it."
Sales can go up to $30,000 a night during the Southern Conference compared to the $13,000 that is typical of a Saturday night, said Bier Garden head chef Josh Burnett.
It's a "controlled chaos," he said. "We're very busy. This place is normally packed to gills. It's fun. It's stressful. We have a good time."
Fans keep the staff's morale up, said Burnett. "We're making money. They're making money."
"Everyone is here wanting to celebrate their team the best way Americans know how, over beer and having a good time with friends."
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