Permit Patty — Woman in blue shirt crouching behind a wall while using her cellphone on a city sidewalk.

Permit Patty

2018nicknameclassic

Published October 15, 2026

Permit Patty is the nickname given to Alison Ettel, an Oakland woman recorded on June 23, 2018 calling police on an 8-year-old Black girl selling bottled water outside her apartment. The clip, posted by the girl's cousin on Twitter with the hashtag #PermitPatty, drew comparison to BBQ Becky and sparked days of outrage once Ettel's job as CEO of a dog cannabis startup surfaced. By late June 2018, San Francisco station KTVU had published her 911 audio and local dispensaries publicly cut business ties with her company.

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Overview

Posts tagged #PermitPatty share the vertical cellphone clip of Ettel crouched against her apartment building's exterior wall holding a phone, while the girl's mother narrates offscreen that police are being called over an unpermitted water stand1. The nickname slots into the alliterative 'first name plus minor offense' pattern that BBQ Becky set weeks earlier in the same city, where a white caller gets a diminutive label for summoning police on Black people doing ordinary things4. Captions and quote-tweets zeroed in on Ettel's day job as CEO of TreatWell, a cannabis startup selling medicated products for dogs, which critics set against the triviality of a child's water stand3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter / Instagram (viral spread)
Creator
@_ethiopiangold
Date
2018

On June 23, 2018, Twitter user @_ethiopiangold, the 8-year-old girl's cousin, posted the ground-level recording with the caption that her 'little cousin was selling water and didn't have a permit so this lady decided to call the cops'1. That tweet carried the first use of the #PermitPatty hashtag, which attached to Ettel within hours. The girl's mother, @ladyesowavy on Instagram, mirrored the clip to her own account where it reached more than 1.2 million views2.

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How It Spread

Later that same day, Huffington Post reached Ettel for comment and published her apology, in which she claimed she had been bluffing about calling police while actually speaking to building security3. Reporting on her role as CEO of a dog-focused medical cannabis company surfaced the same day, and Twitter users compared her trade of selling marijuana for pets against her report of a Black child's water stand4. Discussion also linked her directly to BBQ Becky, Jennifer Schulte, who had been filmed calling Oakland police on a Black family's charcoal grill in April4.

On June 28, 2018, San Francisco station KTVU published the actual 911 audio Ettel had placed, which contradicted her earlier claim that the call was only pretend; the recording ends abruptly after the operator tries to transfer her to police5. A /r/funny thread about the Daily Dot writeup of that audio reached over 2,300 upvotes6. The original cellphone footage is archived on YouTube alongside the 911 audio clip7.

Timeline

2018-06-23

@_ethiopiangold posts the cellphone video to Twitter with the hashtag #PermitPatty, coining the nickname for Alison Ettel.

2018-06-23

The girl's mother @ladyesowavy mirrors the clip to Instagram, where it reaches over 1.2 million views.

2018-06-23

Huffington Post publishes an interview with Ettel in which she apologizes and says she had only been bluffing.

2018-06-28

KTVU publishes the actual 911 audio Ettel placed that day, contradicting her bluff claim.

2018-06-28

Daily Dot writes up the KTVU audio and a /r/funny thread about it gains more than 2,300 upvotes.

Frequently Asked Questions