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SF 49ers Reportedly Celebrate Aldon Smith's Suspension With $6,300 Meal

Eve Batey — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 12:50:00 GMT

When you get scolded by your boss, you usually try to treat yourself, right? Bag of cheddar chips, sleeve of Oreos, extra guoc on that burrito. Beleaguered 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith is no different than you, it appears — except his comfort food is of the four-figure variety.

According to the Chronicle's Leah Garchik, Smith and teammates Glenn Dorsey and Antoine Bethea took their significant others to Twenty Five Lusk on Saturday night for a lavish night out, just one day after the National Football League suspended Smith for violating the league’s policies on personal conduct and substance abuse.

Smith's had a rocky few years, including a July no-contest plea to three illegal gun and two DUI charges brought by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office after a wild party at Smith's house that left him stabbed in the chest.

In April, Smith was arrested at LAX for allegedly making a bomb threat to a TSA agent, but prosecutors eventually decided against charges in that case.

Smith was also arrested in September 2013 on suspicion of misdemeanor drunken driving and marijuana possession after he crashed his vehicle into a tree on the front lawn of a San Jose home. That September incident wasn't Smith's first alleged DUI, though: he got nabbed on similar charges in Miami back in January of 2012.

Though Smith entered a live-in rehabilitation program for alcohol abuse after that second DUI arrest, it appears that he has no trouble celebrating! According to Garchik, Smith and his five friends spent $6,300 dining at the "modern restaurant and lounge featuring seasonally driven New American cuisine" on Saturday.

Each player, Garchik reports, had two main courses, which appear from 25 Lusk's menu to run a fairly reasonable $30-$40 per plate. Somehow, however, they managed to put away nearly $3,300 in food and $3,000 in wine. Here's their wine list if you want to do the math on that one, but, honestly, it seems way easier to spend $3K on booze there than $3.3K on food. But I don't train or eat like an 6' 4" 265 lb. NFL player, so who's to say?

Their server, who they must have kept quite busy, was tipped $1,000, Garchik reports.

Smith will be back at work when the Niners play the New York Giants during Week 11 of the 2014 season. Until then, perhaps he can get started on his sentence for those gun charges: three years of probation, 11 days in a work program and 235 hours of community service.

That is, once he's done digesting everything.

[SF Chronicle]
[SF Appeal]

California Senate Votes To Suspend Leland Yee

Brock Keeling — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 11:11:31 GMT

The California Senate voted 28-1 Friday to suspend troubled San Francisco and San Mateo County Senator Leland Yee from his duties. (Sen. Joel Anderson was the only no vote.)

Charges against Yee include "conspiracy to deal firearms without a license, conspiracy to illegally transport firearms, six counts of a scheme to defraud citizens on his services, and wire fraud." The former San Francisco mayoral candidate was handcuffed and arrested on Wednesday after an FBI sting.

Also suspended today were two other senators, Rod Wright and Ron Calderon. (Unlike Yee, however, they will still receive pay.) City Insider has more:

Wright, a Los Angeles County Democrat who claimed to live in Inglewood, was found guilty in January of voter fraud and perjury after a jury concluded he lied about where he lived and that his residence was actually in tony Baldwin Hills, which is outside his district.
Last month, Calderon was indicted on 24 counts of mail fraud, bribery, money laundering and tax fraud following an undercover FBI investigation, which alleged the Democrat from Montebello (Los Angeles County) “would perform official acts favorable to the individuals paying him bribes and kickbacks.” Calderon has pleaded not guilty.

Read SFist's comprehensive coverage of the Leland Yee saga

Twitter Apologies For Hastily Suspending Guy Adams' Account

Brock Keeling — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:40:51 GMT

Twitter (sort of) apologized for suspending the account of Guy Adams, correspondent for the London-based daily The Independent, who echoed the sentiments of many Olympic viewers by going on a Twitter rant about NBC's time delay-saddled and arguably lackluster Olympics coverage. After tweeting the (public) work email address of NBC's Olympics President Gary Zenkel, Twitter temporarily yanked his account for allegedly violating its privacy policy. The San Francisco-based social media company has now publicly apologized for the apparent error in judgement.

In part of a written statement explaining trust and safety policies and procedure, Alex Macgillivray, Twitter's General Counsel for Product/IP, explains:

That said, we want to apologize for the part of this story that we did mess up. The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.
As I stated earlier, we do not proactively report or remove content on behalf of other users no matter who they are. This behavior is not acceptable and undermines the trust our users have in us. We should not and cannot be in the business of proactively monitoring and flagging content, no matter who the user is — whether a business partner, celebrity or friend. As of earlier today, [Adams'] account has been unsuspended, and we will actively work to ensure this does not happen again.

For his part, Adams has wasted no time in making a name for himself using the minor kerfuffle. Behold:

Twitter's full email will be on The Indy's website shortly. Meanwhile I'll be discussing this jolly jape on CNN in about 30 mins
— Guy Adams (@guyadams) July 31, 2012

Manny Ramirez's Suspension Becomes the Giants' Gain

Brock Keeling — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:00:10 GMT

Great news, Giants fans. The LA Times reports that, as of this morning, Dodgers left fielder Manny Ramirez has been put on temporary suspension for 50 games after testing positive for an illegal substance. And, in classic prescription drug abuse excuses, Ramirez blames the doctor.

Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons. I want to apologize to [Dodgers owner Frank] McCourt, Mrs. McCourt, [manager Joe] Torre, my teammates, the Dodger organization, and to the Dodger fans. LA is a special place to me and I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I'm sorry about this whole situation.

We year you, Manny. We can't tell you how many times we too have gone to the doctor, only to be prescribed some sort of distant anabolic steroid derivative, which, for some reason, we keep taking again and again until we can punch a hole in the ceiling.

Anyway, Ramirez 's suspension comes on the heels of the LA Dodgers coming in at no. 1 in NL West, with the Giants trailing close behind at no. 2. With Manny out for the next couple of months, according to NBC Bay Area, "no one will be able to come close to replacing Ramirez's production ... which will likely make the team's 13-0 home start a distant memory by the time Ramirez returns to the lineup." Which? Is fantastic news.