Online entrepreneurs, from left, Christine Peters, Kimberly Becker and Kathleen Kurjanowicz stand recently in the loft over Maine Street Design on Front Street in Bath. The business pop-up event celebrated the women who empower each other. Paul Bagnall / The Times Record

A recent business pop-up event, hosted in a loft on Front Street in Bath, celebrated three female entrepreneurs who empower each other and run their own online businesses in the Midcoast.

Kimberly Becker, Christine Peters and Kathleen Kurjanowicz used the space over Maine Street Design on Saturday, July 13, to host around 30-35 people who showed up to support the event featuring stationery, jewelry and clothing for purchase from the women’s businesses.

“[Pop-ups] are intimate, and you can really have conversations with people,” Peters said. “The collaboration with Kimberly and Kathleen is a new one for me, and it’s been great mixing our different ideas of business.”

Christine Peters Jewelry

Christine Peters has been making jewelry for the past 28 years. She started her art career as a sculptor before transitioning into jewelry making a year after she moved to Maine in 1995. Her nature and botanical-based jewelry work for her business, Christine Peters Jewelry, is done out of her home studio in Edgecomb. Peters works with sterling silver and 18- to 22-karat gold.

Anne-Marie Carey, visiting from Ireland, checks out Christine Peters Jewelry on July 13 during the pop-up shop in the loft over Maine Street Design on Front Street in Bath. Paul Bagnall / The Times Record

Two lines of jewelry featuring floral and botanical pieces and contemporary gold pieces were displayed in the loft.

Peters has had a website since the late 1990s, with its roots being a portfolio website that has evolved into an online store. However, she finds that customers will be more likely to buy her jewelry after they visit her home studio (by appointment only) to see the products before buying online.

Some of the work Peters does is repurpose people’s inherited jewelry by taking stones out of pieces and turning them into custom pieces they can wear and still have a connection to their family history.

Peters has two upcoming shows: the Montseag Makers Market from July 20-21 and the Garlic Festival from Aug. 17-18, both in Woolwich. Peters has co-hosted the Montseag Makers Market since 2020.

Peters met Becker during Crafts at the Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown, New York, in May. Becker got to know Kurjanowicz through a mutual friend, and the trio has met for coffee once a week to discuss how to better their businesses and being a one-woman show.

James Point Stationery

Kurjanowicz lives in downtown Bath and owns James Point Stationery, a primarily online store launched in November 2021 during the pandemic lockdown.

The Bath event was the first retail pop-up Kurjanowicz and Becker had ever done, although Becker had previously held fairs and craft shows.

“We just thought it was time to get together, join forces and do something fun for all of us,” Kurjanowicz said.

Kurjanowicz designs all her planners like list makers, which is how she started James Point Stationary. The daily planners are a little more flexible without setting dates on the paper. Each of the 52 pages — in line with 52 weeks in a year — can be refilled with another set of pages after they are used by ordering more online.

Attendees look over Kathleen Kurjanowicz’s James Point Stationery products July 13 during a business pop-up in the loft over Maine Street Design on Front Street in Bath. Kurjanowicz, left, launched her business in November 2021. Paul Bagnall / The Times Record

The first planner Kurjanowicz designed was the MultiTasker, which she started after a fight with her husband about all the Post-it Notes she used to leave in the kitchen. There were also too many lists to keep track of for other tasks, like shopping lists, which was a lot for Kurjanowicz’s household, so she found a better way to keep all the multitask lists in one place.

Kurjanowicz said what separates her from other planners is the higher quality of paper bound in a fabric, binder-like case with a magnet under the fabric to post the planner to a hard surface like a refrigerator.

“Every single product here was designed based on something I wanted or needed at different points of my life and career,” Kurjanowicz said. “There is a little bit of everything for everyone.”

Kurjanowicz plans to launch notebooks and journals later in the year, and her daughter, Eleanor James, is pushing for a children’s stationery line.

K.Becker Designs

Becker, owner of K.Becker Designs in Woolwich, said the idea for the pop-up came from all three entrepreneurs, who wanted to inform their friends and neighbors about their products. Becker’s capsule collection, which helps customers gather key pieces to make a wardrobe, was on sale for the business pop-up.

The collection included clothing like a light jacket for spring and fall, a simple dress, and travel pants. There was something to choose from every season, and some customers purchased Becker’s clothing online to be shipped later.

“My whole goal with my line is to support women and make women feel better with what they are wearing on their bodies,” Becker said, referring to the unrealistic body sizes women are subjected to in fashion, with the average size in reality being 18.

In another show of female solidarity, Becker donates 5% of her profits to install bathroom units in Uganda’s rural Kyotera District schoolyards to give young women privacy during menstruation. Oftentimes, young women in Uganda without this necessity drop of out school once they begin menstruating.

In-person events like the pop-up help entrepreneurs like Becker, Peters and Kurjanowicz attract new customers after they see what they have to offer and feel them out, which could translate into an online sale down the line.

“This is what we wanted because so many times you tell people about what you do, but until they are actually able to touch it and try it on, it’s hard for them to really know and commit,” Becker said.

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A year-old law seems to have done little to curb a surge in violence against health care workers that began during the pandemic, despite increasing charges for assaults on nonmedical staff – such as custodial, security or administrative workers – who are providing emergency medical care.

According to Maine’s Judicial Branch, there have been 12 charges of “assault on an emergency medical care provider” in 2024 – on track to meet similar numbers as the last five years. There were 27 charges in 2023 and 25 in 2022, for example.

Joe Bragg, a registered nurse and nursing supervisor at Down East Community Hospital in Machias, said the expanded definition doesn’t seem to be changing the behavior of patients, many in a state of crisis when they arrive in the emergency department.

“I don’t think anybody is going into the hospital going, ‘Well, I better not act out today because L.D. 1119 is in effect,” said Bragg. “It doesn’t change anything. If violence is going to happen, it’s going to happen.”

The law – L.D. 1119 – which passed in July 2023, increased charges for an assault occurring in an emergency department setting, regardless of whether the victim is a health care worker, from a Class D crime – punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a $2,000 fine – to a Class C crime, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

(Felonies are typically crimes punishable by more than a year in prison, while misdemeanors are typically considered less serious crimes punishable by less than a year in jail. Maine no longer uses these categories.)

Between 2017 and 2021, Maine health care workers filed 1,000 claims for lost time due to intentional injury, most related to interactions with patients.

Prior to the new law, health care workers filed 167 intentional injury lost time claims in the first seven months of 2023; 114 were filed in the first four months after the law took effect.

Advocates for the expanded law, including Maine’s two largest health care conglomerates, MaineHealth and Northern Light Health, say the changes were intended to help law enforcement and prosecutors hold people accountable for their behavior and to protect those not previously included, such as security officers.

“L.D. 1119 really doesn’t impact the number of assaults, it simply clarifies the ability to prosecute,” said Jeff Austin, principal lobbyist for the Maine Hospital Association.

Austin said MHA is seeing around 200 incidents per month at its member hospitals, similar to years prior.

To further help combat workplace violence, hospitals have put out campaigns. The Northern Light Hospital system is working to get the ‘Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees’ Act passed in Congress. At DECH in Machias, administrators have hung signage encouraging  a safer environment and reminding visitors to “be kind to our staff.”

While violence in emergency departments predates the pandemic, its ongoing effects have added to the frequency of assaults.

In testimony last year, a registered nurse within the MaineHealth system described a patient throwing a chair at a sliding door, shattering the glass before grabbing her arm.

In another instance, Nancijean Goudey, the director of emergency services at Maine Medical Center, described a patient who lunged, grabbed her around the neck, threw her on a bed and attempted to climb on top of her.

In testimony, emergency providers described attacks that ranged from spitting to verbal abuse to physical violence. The Maine Medical Center emergency department reported 277 incidents of workplace violence in a three-month period in early 2023.

Nurses and hospital staff pushed for the passage of the law, arguing that something needed to be done to help with the violence and protect nonmedical staff.

Defense attorney Walt McKee believes classifying assault on emergency health care personnel as a felony can be a slippery slope – the person’s job should not be part of the consideration, he said.

“A felony level crime should be dealt with when there is significant bodily harm, not because it was on a nurse and not a teacher,” said McKee.

CRIMINALIZING MENTAL HEALTH

Others argue the expanded law hasn’t helped deter violence in the year since it was passed and that it adversely affects those with mental health issues, who may be more likely to act violently in emergency settings.

Advocates on both sides agree that violence against hospital staff should not be tolerated. But with mental health treatment resources across the state increasingly strained, those in crisis have few places to turn beyond an emergency room.

There are only 10 inpatient psychiatric treatment facilities across Maine, with roughly 500 beds. The long waitlist of people seeking mental health treatment only continues to grow, with wait periods stretching for months.

Facing a lack of resources and appropriate treatment, people turn to their hospitals, said state Rep. Nina Milliken, D-Blue Hill.

“The message is if you have a medical issue, just go to the emergency department,” said Milliken. “These systems are operating as our only response currently to a long list of human suffering. It isn’t fair to the criminal legal system, it isn’t fair to ER staff, and it isn’t fair to anyone else.”

The new law punishes people – some of whom may be in a state of psychosis and unaware of their actions – “for something that is essentially a treatment failure,” said Emily Mott, staff attorney for Disability Rights Maine.

People in crisis brought to an emergency department against their will because they are deemed a danger to themselves or others are often more at risk of lashing out, although they may not be fully in control – or even aware of – their actions.

That was the case for Julie Potter, who brought herself to the emergency room for a dissociative episode while studying for her master’s in social work at the University of New England.

Potter said after explaining her situation to hospital staff that she was led by police officers to a sterile room. Potter said she tried to leave, and remembers only waking up to bruises on her body with officers saying she had assaulted them.

Potter was eventually charged with assault on a police officer – a charge that carries similar punishments to those under L.D. 1119.

While the charges were eventually dropped, after what she said was a lengthy court proceeding and a year of psychiatric supervision, the incident upended her life and ultimately resulted in Potter leaving her master’s program.

“What it’s going to do is criminalize people’s trauma in mental health,” Potter said of the expanded law. “We are going to have more people in prison, in jails, in the court system that are just hurting and more hopeless, and do not believe in a system that cares about them. … You are ruining people’s lives.”

People convicted of a felony may have trouble getting jobs or housing, said Mott, of Disability Rights Maine, which can further delay treatment.

“In a world of collateral damages, it’s important.”

Health care workers shouldn’t have to tolerate assault, said Frayla Tarpinian, district defender at the new Capital Region Defender’s Office, but expanding the law will not effectively deter violence if the behavior is driven by mental illness and the punishment doesn’t include treatment.

“There is just something manifestly unfair about somebody who does not want to be touched to be forcibly medicated, then charging them because they don’t comply.”

WHO BENEFITS?

“It’s a tough situation all around. Who does it help the most? The irony is, it probably helps prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys,” said Brendan Trainor, district attorney for Penobscot County. “It does give us more options to charge somebody.”

Despite this, many district attorney offices and police departments across the state say they have not seen an increase in the number of charges since the law was passed.

The Portland Police Department has only seen four charges since the law was enacted, despite Maine Medical Center reporting large numbers of assaults.

Other departments, including in Augusta, Lewiston and Machias, said they had seen little change in the number of charges since the law’s passage.

In Penobscot County, there have been eight charges for assault on emergency medical service personnel since July 2022. The Lewiston Police Department reported six charges between July 2023, when the law was enacted, and this June, and the Augusta Police Department reported four – on par with the 10 and seven charges, respectively, reported in the year prior.

On the other side, McKee, the defense attorney, felt prosecutors already had enough “tools in the toolbox” to charge someone with assault. Unless judges said they were seeing serious offenses that require more serious charges, he said, there was no reason to increase the penalty.

Health care providers emphasized they do not file charges against a person in a mental health crisis, unable to distinguish right from wrong. Once charges are brought, whether a person is competent to stand trial is decided by the state’s forensic evaluators and a judge.

Austin, of the Maine Hospital Association, and hospital staff recognize that violence can be unintentional, especially if it stems from someone with a mental illness.

But that’s not true for all, said Austin.

“And we believe [they] should be held accountable for their decisions.”

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from the Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.

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