Arizona-based Four Peaks Brewery pledges to uphold equality for LGBT individuals
Feb 1, 2017, 9:35 AM | Updated: 2:22 pm
(Facebook Photo)
PHOENIX — Officials at Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe signed a unity pledge on Tuesday to uphold equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Arizonans.
Jim Scussel, co-founder of Four Peaks, signed the pledge at a special event with Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell and ONE Community president Angela Hughey to “celebrate diversity, inclusion and equality for all Arizonans.”
“At Four Peaks, for the past 20 years, we’ve always been an equal opportunity employer and we’ve never tolerated any form of discrimination,” Scussel said. “To see this kind of pledge, we were all about it, so we decided to do a signing.”
ONE Community is an organization dedicated to promoting “equality for all Arizonans,” according to its website. It is behind the unity pledge, which began in 2013 and, to date, has been signed by more than 2,000 businesses.
Scussel said he wanted Four Peaks to be a part of that list in order to “bring awareness” and “set the example” of what it means to be an inclusive business in Tempe.
“We’re a brewery, and beer brings people together and it makes for good company,” he said. “We look forward to continuing to supporting equality for all Arizonans.”
Four Peaks, which was acquired by Anheuser-Busch in 2015, has long been a staple in the community and has recently expanded outside of Tempe.
Scussel said “Tempe’s paved the way for equality” and, since the brewery’s roots are in Tempe, “we want to join everyone in Tempe in that as well.”
In 2016, the Tempe Tourism Office received the inaugural award from a publication showcasing LGBT-friendly businesses in Arizona and, in 2015, it scored 100 percent in the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index report.