Since my review was taken down by the owner on Google Maps; here it is again on Yelp. I live 7 hours away and was visiting Chico, CA alone yesterday because I was had scheduled a tour of the college campus. It is important information to know that I traveled by Amtrak and quickly learned that the Greyhound / Amtrak station in Chico is unattended and is basically just a train platform that acts as side-of-the-road bus stop. After I finished my tour of the campus, I tried walking around the city. There are pretty much no buildings open to the public because most of the businesses have been hit so hard by the pandemic. No restaurants had dine-in options or even outdoor seating, so it was hard to find a safe place to be. After I realized this, I made my way back to the bus / train station to wait for my bus which was a few hours away. This is a very small town, so there aren't very many people walking around. I noticed that the only building that was open for some reason was this "art center". Their hours are exclusively Friday from 12 pm - 4 pm, Saturday 10 am - 4 pm , and Sunday 10 am - 4 pm, which I think is also important information to note. I took a look around inside of the art center and then returned outside and had been sitting in front of the bus station on the platform deck for like a half hour. A man who was clearly intoxicated approached me out of nowhere and was being very sexually aggressive towards me. He was listing off all of the substances he was on, was telling me we need to hang out, and wouldn't stop inching closer to me. I'm only 19 years old so I don't have a lot of experience in situations like this. I told the homeless man it was nice to meet him and walked away quickly, going into the Chico Art Center building because it was the only place that I could go to. I asked the docent to point me towards their gift shop and I looked around at their exhibit for about 20 minutes while I was on the phone with my parents. While the docent was ringing up my purchase from the gift shop, I explained to him what had happened and asked him if I could stay in their gallery or sit down somewhere until my bus arrived in an 2 hours. The man seemed understanding of my situation and told me that I could wait in the room where they held art classes. I thanked him and was sitting there for about 10 minutes before an employee came in for something unrelated and explained to the docent that someone had defecated on the stairs outside. The docent explained to the staff why I was in their art room after hearing about the defecation outside, and then I heard another woman (who I assume is the owner) in the back room say that I couldn't be there. Then she sent the docent to where I was sitting and he told me that he misinformed me that I could stay there. He told me I could return to where I was originally sitting outside. I noticed that the room was a public seating room because they had a public fridge with beverages you could donate to purchase. I'm really not sure why it was such a problem for me to be there, since there was literally nobody coming in to their art center the entire time I was there besides the employee, and the owner even had her young granddaughters sitting in their art room, so you would think she would have been more understanding of my situation. If I were the owner, I would have allowed myself to seek shelter there for the one and a half hours I had left there. In my opinion, one person witnessing a homeless man's fecal matter outside for a few seconds is a much better situation than it would be for a possible sexual assault police report to show up on the crime maps online near their business. On top of this, they weren't even going to be open much longer (my connection bus came at 3:30 p.m. this happened around 2 pm) and I was asking to stay there during their very exclusive hours. My father called the woman and asked her why she turned had turned me away, which she denied on the phone. She then came outside to where I was standing on the phone with my mother and began verbally harassing me, after all that I had been through already and this woman was probably like in her late 60's, yelling at a 19 year old. I walked away from her, not even acknowledging her and stood my my bus stop on the side of the street because I could see my bus at that point. I feel very discouraged from attending college here because I will be traveling by train a lot and they are the only business around that area that is open. Just knowing that they won't be willing to help people in an emergency makes me feel very uneasy. I will never come back here. I shouldn't have bought anything here because now they will stay open another week. This is my accurate account of my experience at the Chico Art Center, so I'm not sure why it is not a recommended review.. read more
