Oregon restaurant faces online harassment over vaccine requirement

SALEM — It’s laborious to overlook Epilogue Kitchen and Cocktails when strolling by means of Salem’s downtown district. Taped to its home windows are tons of indicators, a few of them handmade. They learn: “Black Lives Matter,” and, “No Place For Hate.”

There are massive portraits of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and in chalk marker, the names of dozens of different folks killed by police in recent times.

There’s additionally a small cardboard signal that reads: “VACCINES REQUIRED FOR SEATED DINING.”

Regardless of that signal, and regardless of having a reservation at a distinct Salem restaurant, Naomi Wolf in late June walked into Epilogue and argued at size with workers about their indoor eating rule.

“So she walked by, noticed our indicators — she determined that that meant that she wanted to trigger a scene,” stated co-owner Jonathan Jones.

Wolf was as soon as a widely known feminist writer — she wrote the 1990 bestseller “The Magnificence Delusion” and suggested Invoice Clinton and Al Gore — who in recent times garnered on-line consideration for spreading misinformation concerning the coronavirus. Her Twitter account has been disabled, however she continues to make use of different social media options, together with one focused to American conservatives known as Gettr.

That’s the place she posted two movies of her late June encounter with workers at Epilogue. In considered one of them, two workers repeatedly ask Wolf to depart. One factors to the vaccines-required signal, and so they ask why Wolf determined to violate that boundary by coming inside and arguing with workers anyway.

“Properly, I imply, to start with, lots of people on this nation’s historical past pushed boundaries like that,” Wolf says within the video. “And it turned out to be the best factor to do.”

Talking to considered one of Epilogue’s Black workers, Wolf goes on to say the indoor eating rule is “completely discrimination.” (By legislation, discrimination is prejudice or bias in opposition to a protected class of individuals with reference to their race, age, gender, sexual preferences, or incapacity standing. Legally talking, COVID-19 vaccine standing doesn’t put somebody right into a protected class of individuals.)

Epilogue additionally affords out of doors seating for individuals who can’t present proof of vaccination.

One other video exhibits Jones telling Wolf that she’s been banned from the restaurant due to the best way she handled his workers.

“You’ve gotten been formally 86′d. If you happen to ever come again, you’ll be trespassing,” Jones says.

Wolf responds: “Properly, I’m solely trespassing if I enter,” whereas showing to face on the sidewalk in entrance of Epilogue’s entrance doorways, close to its out of doors seating space.

Wolf didn’t reply to OPB’s requests for remark.

Wolf’s movies on Gettr have lots of of feedback from folks rallying to harass the restaurant. A number of of them make enjoyable of Jones’ look and name for violence in opposition to him. And lots of extra name on the gang to depart adverse evaluations on the web site’s numerous on-line profiles. That’s when its rankings on Google and Yelp plummeted.

“We’ve had over 150 faux one-star evaluations,” Jones stated every week after the incident. “Most of them dive fairly shortly into racism. Fairly unbridled, gross racism.”

Jones stated about 75 faux reservations have been booked on-line inside every week — made beneath names like “Let’s go Brandon,” a conservative code for an insult to President Joe Biden. Epilogue acquired lots of of prank telephone calls and hateful voicemails; Jones stated he needed to inform workers to cease answering the telephone, so solely he must bear the brunt of the hate.

“I’ll by no means eat at your restaurant now, later,” a girl says in a voicemail that had turn into typical of the sort flooding the restaurant’s inbox. “I hope your small business goes beneath.”

Like lots of the callers, the lady within the voicemail gave the impression to be equating Epilogue’s coverage of requiring vaccines to dine inside with racism. She went on to say Epilogue’s meals in all probability “tastes like segregation.”

Jones, who’s Black, stated the menu attracts inspiration from the Black diaspora. You will get fried duck leg coated in apple butter and fig-chili vinegar, or rabbit confit flavored with jerk spices.

Jones stated he and his spouse opened the restaurant about 12 years in the past to precise themselves creatively by means of meals and artwork.

“Every thing we do is designed to type of present the marks of our arms; to be a chunk of our soul, our coronary heart, our thoughts,” he stated.

A part of that’s not being afraid to indicate what they imagine in, he stated, even when that may draw undesirable — and typically scary — consideration.

“If you happen to sit right here lengthy sufficient, you will note simply unbridled hatred directed on the restaurant,” Jones stated. “Each single day, folks stroll by. They flip us off, they yell ‘All Lives Matter.’”

Since its beginnings, Jones stated, Epilogue has suffered racist graffiti and violent assaults. A lot of this has been recorded on a restaurant safety digital camera and posted to Epilogue’s Instagram account.

In a single video, a person and girl seem to make a white energy image on the digital camera, then stroll away. In one other video, a person seems to be making an attempt to interrupt the glass entrance doorways, slamming into them a number of occasions. Jones stated the incident cracked the glass.

Chris Younger, a daily buyer and good friend of Jones, stated racist incidents appear to have turn into extra prevalent in Salem for the reason that 2020 racial justice protests, however there hasn’t been a lot recognition of it from metropolis leaders.

“Each occasionally, you’ll have a metropolis councilor have some stern phrases in the midst of a gathering or one thing,” he stated. “However so far as one thing tangible taking place, one thing particular to handle this concern, you very not often, if ever, hear something about it.”

Salem Mayor Chuck Bennet and Metropolis Councilor Chris Hoy, who’s slated to turn into the following mayor, didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Jones stated he’s gone to the Salem police previously, however he didn’t really feel listened to, so he hasn’t reported the Wolf incident or the following harassment.

The way in which he sees it, people who find themselves pushed to violence in opposition to his restaurant are angered by his very existence.

“The native hatred comes from the truth that we dare to talk our minds; we dare to create areas and push again in opposition to the established order of a traditionally white utopia,” Jones stated. “And we are also glorious on the merchandise and the service that we do, and that simply completely drives them up a wall.”

However whereas that will draw hate from some folks, others appear to like Epilogue twice as a lot. Madalena Martin, a staffer at Epilogue, stated the restaurant has turn into a gathering place for individuals who may really feel like misfits due to their race, gender, or political beliefs, particularly in an space that tends to lean conservative.

“Now I’m right here and I’m surrounded by different activists and other people who’re centered on the disruption of the oppression in our society … It’s simply therapeutic,” Martin stated.

Jones — who’s initially from the Philadelphia space — stated it doesn’t matter what occurs, Salem is his group now, and no quantity of harassment or violence will scare him away.

“They will bash our home windows, they’ll threaten my life,” Jones stated. “… I’m nonetheless going to be the wonderful individual that I’m.”