Alison Ettel, now better known as “Permit Patty,” has announced that she is stepping down as CEO of TreatWell Health, a cannabis company specializing in CBD edibles and tinctures.
Ettel’s announcement comes just days after a video of her reporting an 8-year-old girl to the police for “selling water without a permit” went viral on Instagram, prompting widespread outrage and condemnation. The move is an effort to recover the business TreatWell has already lost over the incident and prevent the company from losing even more clients as the video continues to generate anger on social media.
TreatWell CEO Resigns Amid Outrage Over “Permit Patty” Video
Erin Austin, the mother of the young water-selling entrepreneur, had some prophetic words for Alison Ettel as the TreatWell CEO attempted to duck behind a wall after realizing she was on camera during her call with San Francisco police.
“You can hide all you want. The whole world gonna see you, boo,” Austin told Ettel. And by Wednesday, they had.
Austin’s video of Ettel calling police on her daughter has so far generated more than a million views and thousands of angry comments.
And that’s because the video shows Ettel attempting to get police to shut down the 8-year-old girl’s water stand. The young girl, Jordan Rodgers, was selling bottled water to raise money for a family trip to Disneyland. Her mother had just lost her job.
But from Ettel’s perspective, Jordan was breaking the law for “illegally selling water without a permit.” And the day after Austin posted the video to Instagram, #permitpatty was already trending.
Unimpressed by the fact that the CEO of a successful cannabis company would call the police on an 8-year-old entrepreneur, vendors of TreatWell products immediately began