EveryBank Hires a Head of Community Relations. She Came Back From Vacation With a Beer Analysis.

EVERYWHERE (Oct. 24, 2026) — EveryBank, N.A. today named Rhea Investment its first Head of Community Relations. The job did not exist until this week, when someone in the building asked what would happen if the bank were examined under the Community Reinvestment Act.

Under that law, regulators grade every insured bank on how well it meets the credit needs of the communities where it takes deposits, low- and moderate-income neighborhoods included. There are four grades: Outstanding, Satisfactory, Needs to Improve, and Substantial Noncompliance. Most banks get Satisfactory, which may be the most EveryBank sentence ever written. EveryBank's community investment, as of last week, was zero. An examiner might accept “the bank does not exist” as context. Not as a plan.

Rhea started Monday. The week before, she was on vacation in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles, where she ate very well and learned that California licenses every place that sells alcohol, through its Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the ABC. The ABC publishes every license, every business day. She came back with questions. Kyle Torrero, our Chief Economist, and Claude helped her answer them.

A bank publishing a beer analysis is, as a rule, unacceptable. This one was built on her vacation, about a place she visited, with no bank money involved. Compliance reviewed it and ruled that, since it was her vacation, interest was allowed.

“I asked Kyle where you can buy a beer in the San Gabriel Valley. He said about six places for every ten thousand people, on average. I said that's not what I asked. He said it is now.”

— Rhea Investment, Head of Community Relations

Where you can buy a beer to go

Stores licensed to sell beer to take home (liquor stores, markets, gas-station stores, supermarkets) per 10,000 residents, in 26 San Gabriel Valley cities and two unincorporated communities. Every one of these stores sells beer. The dark part of each bar sells spirits too.

The law is an average

Here is where the bank got interested. California decides whether a neighborhood has too many alcohol licenses by comparing it to the average. Under state law, a neighborhood (a census tract) is “unduly concentrated,” which is grounds to turn down a new license, if it has more stores selling to go per resident than its county does. Or if it sits in a police reporting district with 20 percent more reported crimes than the average district.

The State of California, in other words, regulates alcohol by asking whether you are above average. EveryBank has never been above average at anything.

On this board, 10 of the 28 places pour above the county line. The average place runs 5.40 per 10,000. The median place runs 4.90. Both are under the county's 5.90. By the state's own test, the average San Gabriel Valley city is not unduly concentrated. Neither is EveryBank. (The law runs the test on census tracts, not whole cities. On average, the joke holds.)

Also on tap

Across these cities, 26 small breweries hold licenses to make beer; Pasadena and Covina have four each. Seventeen bars are licensed to pour beer and nothing else. Irwindale, population 1,502, holds three licenses to brew beer on an industrial scale, and nine stores selling to go: 60 per 10,000. The City of Industry has 420 residents and 28 stores: 667 per 10,000, a statistic best enjoyed responsibly. Both cities are left off the board so it fits on a screen. Both are on the moratorium list.

Does this count?

Does a beer analysis count as community investment? No. Rhea knows. It counts as community relations, which is her title, and it's a start. Her next project is the boring one, which is how it's supposed to go.

Enjoy (responsibly)!

Source: California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, daily license data published Oct. 23, 2026. Counts are stores with an active license to sell beer to take home, inside city limits; the ABC calls these license types 20 (beer and wine) and 21 (beer, wine and spirits). Populations: California Department of Finance, Jan. 1, 2026. *Hacienda Heights and Rowland Heights are unincorporated, so their populations are Census estimates (2020–2024). Density is not demand: it says how crowded the field is, not how good the stores are. No store is named here, and none will be.