Huntington Beach restaurant stirs controversy online with anti-mask stance

[Demovictory9]

https://www.ocregister.com/2020/06/29/huntington-beach-restaurant-stirs-controversy-online-with-anti-mask-stance/

?w=863

Basilico’s Pasta e Vino in Huntington Beach has announced on social media that it opposes asking people to wear masks in public, eliciting both applause and boos from customers.

A red circle with a line drawn through it, superimposed on black-and-white graphics displaying two masked faces, appeared on Facebook on Sunday, May 31 with the hashtag #nomasksallowed. It had garnered more than 44 mixed comments with 71 shares on Facebook and 35 likes on Instagram by Monday, June 29. On Monday the restaurant posted a combined image on Facebook of an American flag and the Gadsden flag, which features a coiled snake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me.”

On Facebook, two fans also posted American flags and “Don’t Tread on Me” images, showing support for the restaurant, which framed no masks as a patriotic policy. One foe countered with “Don’t tread anywhere near Basilico’s. Give them a wide berth, and instead tread on over to some other Italian restaurant in HB.”

Tony Roman, the restaurant’s owner, stood by the policy online. “Another hit and run coward hiding behind your masked user account and probably your mommy’s dress too,” he wrote in a comment to one social media naysayer that was posted on Yelp by Jonathan Milliken, who handles the restaurant’s social media accounts. The comment was later reposted on Facebook by someone else.

[JDC]

1. A seriously poor marketing strategy.

That business will be out of business in a year tops. They will blame COVID, but it sure as shit will their letting the world know who they are as shitty people.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I wonder how their covid19 numbers will do, with this policy?

I expect that at least some customers will applaud, and some will stay away.

This is a short-sighted stance, and I do not wish them luck.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. Two of my daughters are gay. We say if the LGBTQ community co-opts Gadsden the RWers won't fly them.

.

The RWers aren't the only ones who can op-opt symbols and flags.

If the LGBTQ community flies dozens of Yellow Gadsden Flags at parades and anywhere a Rainbow flag is flown, the RWers will eventually abandon that flag for fear of association to it and the confusion it's use would create to casual observers.

Sometimes a rainbow "Don't Tread on Me" flag will fly, but to be effective it must be the Yellow Gadsden Flag.

.

[dalton99a]

4. Hopefully his "fast expanding base of great American patriot customers" will give him a gift

[C_U_L8R]

5. Why doesn't Facebook cancel their account?

They are clearly endangering people.

[Celerity]

7. Fuckerberg wants the dosh nt

[smirkymonkey]

6. Hah! Good luck with that strategy.

[Cha]

12. Tony Roman is Breathtakingly Stupid, Smirky.. & mean spirited like a treasonous trump fan..

Tony Roman, the restaurant’s owner, stood by the policy online. “Another hit and run coward hiding behind your masked user account and probably your mommy’s dress too,” he wrote in a comment to one social media naysayer that was posted on Yelp by Jonathan Milliken, who handles the restaurant’s social media accounts. The comment was later reposted on Facebook by someone else.

[PatSeg]

8. Terrible business strategy

A successful business needs to leave politics and religion at home. They never mix well with customer oriented businesses.

[louis-t]

9. But you can't sue him when you get the plague.

What kind of asshole kills off his customers as a business plan?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. The sooner he and his customers die, the better off we will all be.

[winstars]

11. After about 60 recent one star Yelp reviews, Yelp has suspended any new reviews!!! LOL

Great biz model, piss off 75% of your potential customers and kill the remaining 25%.

Nice one...