Blueberries were splattered across the front entrance of Partners in Oklahoma City – Photo: KFOR.
The owners of a gay club in Oklahoma say their establishment has been targeted by acts of vandalism using food as a weapon on two separate occasions.
The first incident occurred last Tuesday, when staff at Partners, a gay bar in Oklahoma City, found a car in the parking lot that had been vandalized by having soup poured over it.
The following day, someone scattered blueberries on the walkway in front of the bar’s main entrance, with some of the berries creating a splatter pattern on the door and the doorframe.
“It was everywhere,” John McAffrey, the owner of Partners, told Oklahoma City-based NBC affiliate KFOR in an interview. “We first thought somebody got sick and then once we got closer, we realized that it was, it looks like blueberries.”
McAffrey said surveillance video caught the culprit in action, but he and his business partner don’t want to share the video until they speak with an attorney. He says the vandal was driving an early 2000s Chevy Silverado.
“They pull up, throw it out the window, slow down for probably like 10 seconds,” he said.
Soup was poured on a car in the parking lot of Partners, a gay bar in Oklahoma City – Photo: KFOR.
It remains unclear as to why the bar was targeted. McAffrey says it could be a form of protest related to COVID-19 restrictions and a local mandate that bars close at 11 p.m., but they have no evidence to confirm that suspicion just yet.
Partners has since placed a security guard in the parking lot to keep an eye out for trouble and prevent future incidents.
“It was completely childish,” McAffrey told KFOR. “There’s better ways to handle something if it is targeted at a certain individual but it’s not going to stop us for continuing and having somewhere safe for everyone in the community to come to.”
An interracial gay couple who run an award-winning farm in King George County, Virginia, say they were the targets of a hate-filled act after someone deliberately dumped medical waste on their property following last week’s state elections.
Kevin Graham, 44, and Dragan Kurbalija, 47, own Gardening Gays Farm, a 27-acre property along U.S. Route 301 where they sell flowers, eggs, seasonal produce, and pasture-raised meats, including lamb and chicken.
They also sell jams, sauces, teas, herbal remedies, local honey, handcrafted candles, and other artisan goods at their on-site store, and share their experiences as farmers on YouTube. The business was recently voted King George County’s “Overall Best Business,” “Best Family-Owned Business,” and “Best Agricultural Business” in a county-sponsored “Best of the Best” contest.
Shakers, a D.C. bar particularly popular with various LGBTQ recreational sports leagues, has announced on Instagram that it will be closing its doors on Sunday, Nov. 23.
In the Nov. 17 Instagram post, Daniel Honeycutt and Justin Parker -- also proprietors of the since-closed The Dirty Goose bar -- shared that after "many, many difficult discussions," they have decided to leave the LGBTQ nightlife industry. The couple said they looked forward to taking extra time to spend with their 3-year-old son.
The post also noted that Keaton Fedak, the owner of Kiki and a former employee of The Dirty Goose, would be taking over the space at 2014 Ninth St. NW, which includes two indoor bars and a large enclosed patio.
My first protest, as my mother tells it, was as a toddler. In our Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, circa 1970, she was moved to join a small group in opposition to some new construction. As she was moved, so was I, on four stroller wheels. My birth may have coincided with the weekend of the Stonewall Riots, but I didn't learn about that till much later.
And, of course, I have no memory of this inaugural outing with Mom to fight the power. Today, my mother looks at current events, disgusted by the White House, and wonders aloud whether protests such as the Oct. 18 No Kings Day actions across the country and beyond do much. At her age, she's certainly entitled to be winding down. Not that she was ever big on protests to begin with -- my first was her last, possibly her only.
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