{"id":5708,"date":"2017-09-27T15:54:19","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T20:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/?p=5708"},"modified":"2020-06-03T13:44:12","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T18:44:12","slug":"restaurant-owners-take-political-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/restaurant-owners-take-political-stance\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant owners take a political stance, but should they?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A co-owner of Reefpoint Brew House in Racine has apparently shown his true colors on Facebook. In response to the NFL anthem kerfuffle, John Valko posted publicly<\/a> that football players who kneel should be executed and that \u201cthey need to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the comments were posted by Valko\u2019s personal page (and have since been deleted, shocker), his co-owners have felt the need to publicly denounce Valko\u2019s comments and views on Reefpoint\u2019s Facebook business page<\/a>. They\u2019re following their attorney\u2019s advice, they say, and are planning to disassociate the business with Valko.<\/p>\n

Distancing the business from one rogue owner\u2019s comments is not surprising in cases where said owner is calling for death. But what about restaurants that go a step further and politicize their business? Where an owner\u2019s political stances cannot be extricated from the restaurant?<\/p>\n

Madison is well known to be a liberal political bastion. Restaurants that take a public stance for liberal causes are lauded in their efforts here. When Ian\u2019s Pizza became the main diet of Act 10 protesters<\/a> in 2011, it was because the business had delivered 60 free slices to the masses. Word spread, orders began coming in from all over the world, and Ian\u2019s became synonymous with that liberal protest.<\/p>\n

Of course, public opinion works the opposite way as well. Restaurants and owners who voice conservative \u2014 or just plain bigoted \u2014 political views can be shunned around here, or at the very least receive bad press. Gene Bennett of the current incarnation of smut and eggs at Bennett\u2019s Meadowood Country Club is known for having extreme \u201clibertarian\u201d views. He says his job is to insult people, and he does it so happily on record<\/a> that it almost sounds like a gimmick… kind of like smut and eggs.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the recent incident<\/a> with Wando\u2019s owner Jay Wando removing \u201cgangster hip-hop\u201d from his bar\u2019s TouchTunes selections because he didn\u2019t want to draw a crowd \u201cnot driven by UW-Madison students.\u201d While it\u2019s not an inherently political gesture, it\u2019s impossible to disentangle racism from politics anymore, and it\u2019s easy to make assumptions about Jay Wando\u2019s political views, justified or not.<\/p>\n

Decisions by business owners that are remotely political will always be judged by the public, and there will always be support and dissent no matter how benign the viewpoint is. It\u2019s relatively easy for restaurant owners in Madison to take liberal stances, but head to the suburbs of Milwaukee and a decision to support NFL players kneeling on a Facebook page could be a restaurant\u2019s death knell.<\/p>\n

Restaurant owners are entitled to whatever political views they have, just like celebrities, athletes and sports writers. Most restaurateurs keep politics out of their businesses to avoid the inevitable boycott by one group or another. If a restaurant owner decides to wade in the water of politics, it\u2019s probably best to back up for a minute, put the vodka tonic down, and make sure you\u2019re on the right side of history before you send that Facebook rant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A co-owner of Reefpoint Brew House in Racine has apparently shown his true colors on Facebook. In response to the NFL anthem kerfuffle, John Valko posted publicly that football players […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5154,5152],"tags":[28,3632,62,3630,12524,3631],"yoast_head":"\nRestaurant owners take a political stance, but should they? | The Bozho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Decisions by business owners that are remotely political will always be judged by the public, with support and dissent no matter how benign the viewpoint.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/restaurant-owners-take-political-stance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Restaurant owners take a political stance, but should they?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When food and drink and politics collide.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/restaurant-owners-take-political-stance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bozho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thebozho\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-09-27T20:54:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-06-03T18:44:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Ians.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Restaurant owners take a political stance, but should they?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"When food and drink and politics collide.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Ians-tw.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@thebozho\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@thebozho\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lacey Muszynski\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Bozho\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thebozho\/\",\"http:\/\/instagram.com\/thebozho\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thebozho\"],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/logo.png\",\"width\":600,\"height\":280,\"caption\":\"The Bozho\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.thebozho.com\/\",\"name\":\"The Bozho\",\"description\":\"Seeing things. 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