a few management staff and hired strikebreaker replacements. In August, César Chávez offered to mediate the strike, but Brugmann refused. Finally, in 1977, another election was called, but this time votes by replacement workers carried the day and the new staff voted not to join a union. Lawsuit against SF Weekly In March 2008, the Bay Guardian won a predatory pricing lawsuit against its local rival, SF Weekly, based on allegations that SF Weekly undercut the Bay Guardian by selling display advertisements below cost while supporting itself on cash infusions from its parent, Village Voice Media, in an effort to force the Bay Guardian into bankruptcy. In May 2008 the judge in the case awarded punitive damages, raising the jury's $6.3 million award to $15.9 million, and issuing an injunction prohibiting the SF Weekly from selling advertisements below cost. Sale and recent developments On April 19, 2012, the East Bay Express reported that the Canadian owners of The San Francisco Examiner were in negotiations with the Bay Guardian to buy the newspaper. These rumors were initially denied by its executive editor Tim Redmond, but the sale went through a week later. On January 15, 2013, their longstanding rival SF Weekly was sold to the San Francisco Newspaper Group, which publishes the Bay Guardian. In mid-June 2013, San Francisco Business Times and other publications reported that Tim Redmond had "been ousted" as publisher and editor. The Bay Guardian issued a statement quoting new publisher Stephen Buel as saying, "The Guardian has been losing money, and we were forced to contemplate some editorial layoffs. Tim decided to resign rather than follow through with what we were discussing." However, Redmond denied resigning. On October 14, 2014, publisher Glenn Zuehls announced that the San Francisco Media Co., which also owns SF Weekly, had decided to close the publication. The 40th annual Best of the Bay issue, published on the same day, was the weekly publication's final issue. Following the Bay Guardians closure, its laid-off staff launched the Bay Guardian-in-Exile Project, which included a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo that raised more than $25,000 to help preserve the paper's archives and produce a final commemorative edition of the Bay Guardian, which was released on Jan. 22, 2015 and distributed in conjunction with the San Francisco Public Press and Gum Road. In October 2015, the Bay Guardian's print and digital archives were handed over to the San