What Started in Georgia Has Crossed The Line in Chattanooga, Tennessee
This isn’t the article I wanted to write. I would much rather write about one of the policy proposals I’ve been helping craft. Alas, it will have to wait, for there is a story that needs to be told. Wokeness or Cancel Culture is no longer confined to fortune 500 companies. What began in Georgia, orchestrated by Stacey Abrams, now seems to have infected a small business just across the state line in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The story begins last summer. I was invited by my friend, Roger, to attend the annual GOP Lincoln Day Dinner in Chattanooga. The dinner took place on Friday night, July 31st. Exact dates are important to remember for this story. It was a packed house, all covid precautions were in place, and masks were handed out as we walked in. I had the good fortune to meet Bill Hagerty prior to the dinner and was impressed with him immensely. He went on to win in November and became the junior senator from Tennessee. Diamond and Silk were the evening’s entertainment. I had never heard of them. If you have never seen them, just imagine all the Trump worship of a Marjorie Taylor Greene event but actually funny and entertaining without the craziness and racism. It was a fun night out as political cattle calls go.
The following Monday, August 3rd, Roger sent me a text to let me know several friends were getting drinks at Mellow Mushroom in downtown Chattanooga that evening. Roger lives in downtown Chattanooga. He has a miniature schnauzer that means the world to him. Mellow Mushroom is a short walk from his condo so he was a regular; sitting either at the expansive bar if he was meeting friends like on the night of the third or on the outdoor patio with his loyal companion, Sparky. That night when I arrived, everyone was discussing the Lincoln Day Dinner and talking about politics in general. We sat at the bar and anyone within earshot knew our political affiliations. Another pleasant evening – though the food wasn’t up to the usual Mellow Mushroom quality.
The next day Tuesday August 4th, Roger stopped in briefly at Mellow Mushroom to meet a friend before going somewhere else in town for dinner.
On Wednesday, August 5th, news broke that an attendee at the Lincoln Day Dinner tested positive for covid-19. Roger went to his doctor to get tested that afternoon. On Thursday, August 6th, he was informed he tested positive and immediately put himself into quarantine per the guidance of his doctor. Hamilton County did standard contact tracing to alert anyone he might have been in contact with while asymptomatic and unaware.
On August 10th, the Hamilton County Health Department issued a press release stating there was a covid exposure at Mellow Mushroom on August 3rd and 4th along with a list of other locations. The local news reported on the press release. WRCBTV reported the following in an article that mentioned, as a result of the press release, Mellow Mushroom took a 40-50% hit in business.
“Brandy Burgans operates both locations with her husband in Chattanooga. She said her employees also spent several hours deep cleaning their Broad Street location.
‘We do know that it wasn’t an employee because they get tested fairly regularly, we check their temperatures every shift, and we keep a log of all that,’ she said.
Both agree, it’s the reason why they take COVID precautions so seriously, to keep their patrons and employees safe.
‘I’ve told the staff you just have to assume that everybody who comes in has it and may not even know it because of so many asymptomatic cases,’ Burgans added.”
It took Roger a little longer than the quarantine period to recover, but he made a full recovery. Later that fall he learned that he had been banned from Mellow Mushroom. No explanation was offered other than that of a friend who spoke to a staff member and that it was for spreading covid-19.
Fast forward to this past weekend. Roger was asked to join friends and others at Mellow Mushroom on May 29th. Having never been formally given an explanation for being banned, he was told that he was allowed into the establishment but that he would not be served. As one can imagine, this was an embarrassing situation, especially when the reasoning remained unclear.
Roger took to Google and left a review to which the owner responded.
It is worth noting that Jason Jones, husband of Brandy Burgans, and owner of Blue Sky Restaurant Group, LLC received $214K PPP funds last year to pay employees of Mellow Mushroom Chattanooga.
Roger showed the response to me, and after a bit of digging, it all made sense. Roger wasn’t banned because he went to Mellow Mushroom while he knowingly had covid-19. The timeline presented above proves that it was impossible for him to have even known he had been exposed, much less have known he was positive. His test data confirm the dates. A more likely reason for the ban is that his personal political beliefs were not in line with the woke ownership. For evidence of this, I present just a small sampling of tweets and retweets by owner, Brandy Burgans.
Illuminating. For the owners of this Mellow Mushroom franchise, it seems their ideal patrons and the conversations heard in their restaurant would mirror those of the progressive wasteland known as Twitter.
This is America, and we do not legislate individual thought. Mellow Mushroom and Mrs. Burgans are free and well within their rights to refuse service to anyone on the basis of a person’s political beliefs. Poor business decision if you ask me, but they have that right.
Customers have rights too. We have the right to choose a dining establishment where we may enjoy the company of friends and offer our opinions in a public dinner setting without fear of future embarrassment and possible defamation at the hands of a woke business owner fabricating lies to ban a vocal conservative customer. I am not calling for a boycott of Mellow Mushroom. Unlike the owner of Mellow Mushroom, I think listening to and engaging with alternative viewpoints are good and healthy for the preservation of our liberty. Mrs. Burgans might prefer the alternative offered by President Lincoln if she’s going to be in the business of discrimination.
“When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
Chattanooga is a tourism city, and Mellow Mushroom surely depends on customers—conservative and liberal—from Georgia and elsewhere. Don’t let this dissuade you from visiting Chattanooga.
If a restaurant will fabricate a falsehood so easily disproved about a customer like this then it’s easy to imagine other methods they might take in private to express their disdain for a customer’s political beliefs. Rather than worry what happens to my order in the back lest I utter a disagreeable word, I think I’ll find alternative dining options. Conservatives, and anyone to the right of the Twitter psyche ward of political thought, should consider doing the same.
If this is to become common practice amongst progressive woke business owners then we, as citizens, need a political affiliation feature added to Yelp, or we need to develop a similar service. Woke is bad for business and bad for the country.
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elliotpierce
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The Lincoln quote came from a letter, dated August 24, 1855. Mr. Lincoln was writing to Joshua Speed. The possibility that the Union would be dissolved was discussed, among other issues. Your quote was in the last paragraph.
“I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].”
My opinion is that the lady will lose a lot of business if she continues to ban folks who are having a civil discussion.
I do not think “woke” is the proper term for this, it sounds more like prejudice. “Woke” these days means to become aware of problems that exist, especially those that involve racial and gender prejudice.
“Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers was founded in 1974 in Atlanta, Georgia. The franchise, operated under Home-Grown Industries of Georgia, Inc., is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. “- perhaps your friend could talk to these folks and see if they have the ability to change the situation.
I used to go to that Mellow a lot when I parked in the garage after work. That’s crazy. I like Pizza Bro’s way better or about two blocks away is Lupi’s. Same kind of thing happend to an employee of MOJO Burrito for going to a unite the right rally. https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2017/aug/16/mojo-burrifires-employee-who-went-charlottesv/443757/ Well I guess MOJO got woke from the woke. They went out off business.
None of this sounds good, and saddening. If all true, even sadder. The only possibility for misunderstanding I see is that the owner assumed your friend knew, but didn’t actually know if he knew, (and maybe didn’t care if he knew), but the incorrect assumption could be based upon a number of things, including poor knowledge of covid, or something she heard or misunderstood from County, and certainly includes a potential willful blindness, and thereby remaining ignorant, by not talking with your friend about the circumstances.
So, not much good there how you cut it, and it certainly has an appearance of potential political discrimination. And many things wrong, incl. just using the internet review as it was, which is potential defamation. At any point, a conversation would have improved the process and outcomes.
So, yes, civil discourse needs to be intentionally and systemically encouraged, not suppressed.
But I also want to point out this sentence:
“Customers have rights too. We have the right to choose a dining establishment where we may enjoy the company of friends and offer our opinions in a public dinner setting without fear of future embarrassment and possible defamation…”
That is a parallel line of thought that a LGBTQ-identifying individual/ couple thinks when they want to eat out, or frankly, buy a wedding cake, or more frankly, work somewhere. So, for those entirely on the wing of the freedom of expression/”right to work” angle, this story should be simple private property rights without protection/consideration for individuals seeking services. Denial of service on any grounds…and what is to stop folks from claiming deeply held religious beliefs in conjunction with this scenario, either?
That is the difficulty of that issue, and perhaps this story may impact the civil dialogue on that topic…..
But I also agree that “woke” is being misused- by many. If it’s discrimination based upon political preference, then that’s it. Being aware of problems is not the problem- but political animosity is. And we need to call out a$#0$ when we see them, regardless of party.
A tweet by the owner in June declared that her business would adhere closely to the word of scientists for how they handle covid-19. So if that is true then there I doubt there was confusion on their part.
The baker story is similar. As is the incident when White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service at a restaurant in Virginia. It’s the right of the business owner to make these decisions. Why one would want to do so is a mystery to me.
What I worry abt is the expansion of use of “deeply-held religious beliefs” to extend to denial of service based upon political preference or any other non-protected status. It becomes too broad and allows for sweeping options to accomplish the end goals of denying ppl you just don’t like, for whatever reason.
Also, I don’t understand what Stacey Abrams has to do with any of this, and that sounds like more of an overbroad or potentially misplaced reaction. She is not responsible nor original source for “wokeness”, nor political discrimination, nor as#0$-iness. She my advocate for using discriminatory spending to impact racial discrimination issues, but that’s a far different order than advocating for denial of service. As it would be for firing employees for political beliefs. If she ever advocated anything like denial of service, I would certainly read any links posted to inform me of such. But I think being on the opposite sides of the transaction matters. But I would also not be surprised by a political affiliation button, or some other button about ideology, on Yelp.
^ She may advocate for…^
I withhold my personal position on her advocacy, as it is nuanced.
I am sorry. I am a regular at mellow mushroom and used to sit with Roger often. I am the reason why he is banned. I told the owner Brandy that he came in and was coughing and was knowingly coming down with something but continued to go out and expose others in the community. These allegations are outrageous. Roger put my life and health at risk along with countless others. Not only did he expose himself with his wrecklessness but severly financially hurt the institutions he visited. This is not the owners being “woke” people say all kinds of these about all sorts of politics at that bar. Some bars around here will even stop serving you or ask you to leave if you push political views. I quarantined 14 days of my life that i will never get back because of Roger Layne. I am certainly not going to defend this man. Poor cry baby. Go somewhere else.
A few takeaways from this story.
What a sillyass cheap shot to get Stacey Abrams name in the first paragraph. Zero added to anything that followed.
How many RESPONSIBLE Americans were holed up last summer avoiding gatherings at all costs in an effort to get Covid infections under control. Yet this group decided the GOP Lincoln Dinner show must go on regardless.
“….a packed house, all covid precautions were in place, and masks were handed out as we walked in. ”
Funny how this isn’t written as, “masks were mandatory and had to be worn correctly by all attendees throughout the evening”.
I’ve seen enough footage of GOP gatherings last summer where the masks were a punch line. As a matter of fact your Diamond and Silk gals were frontrunners in disparaging virus containment policy from the day Trump announced it would magically disappear.
I would suspect the gathering was defiant in every way regarding guidelines in place at the time.
I know Elliot. I used to think he was a Republican trying to repair his party. Turns out he likes to sit on the fence and do the only thing Republicans know – shitposting and scandal. You know, since they don’t have any actual policies to discuss.
In this case, he’s actively trying to take down a Black female business owner, which makes him pretty racist.
Here’s the actual story of what really happened. TL;DR he was openly symptomatic.
https://newschannel9.com/amp/news/local/chattanooga-pizza-parlor-bans-customer-after-2020-covid-19-exposure
I would encourage you to look into the full ownership of the franchise a little more closely before leveling accusations of racism. In any event, thanks for reading.
Unsurprisingly, you are neglecting to address the fact that there are multiple witnesses to your friend being obviously symptomatic that day when he visited the restaurant. He was reckless, and now you want to take down a Black female small business owner. If we need to look at the rest of the ownership of the franchise, which I assume you are saying because they are not Black, then why did you focus on the Black female owner.
You’re just racist. And, as they say, a hit dog will holler.
Perhaps they jumped to conclusions and incorrectly placed blame. But you also jump when you say it’s about his political beliefs. Roger thinks that the Walnut Street Bridge is private for his use only, and he thinks that a private business is public and worthy of his company. I think his thinking is screwed up.
There’s obviously some history here that we’re not privy to. A person can be a jerk without pinning a political affiliation as the cause.
And don’t forget in the restaurant industry tips are often the bulk of an employee’s income. The government isn’t going to replace that.