The house owners of a bar within the North Seaside neighborhood of San Francisco say they’ve acquired tons of of threatening and hateful messages since a video of a person spraying an apparently homeless girl with a hose went viral on-line earlier this week. Critically, neither the house owners nor the staff of the Barbarossa Lounge on Montgomery Avenue had something to do with the incident.
The video, which surfaced on-line Monday, exhibits artwork gallery proprietor Collier Gwin leaning in opposition to a fence in entrance of the Barbarossa Lounge as he blasts a lady sitting on the sidewalk within the face and chest with a backyard hose at brief vary. Gwin, whose artwork gallery is in the identical constructing because the Barbarossa Lounge, mentioned he was making an attempt to scrub the sidewalk on which the girl was sitting when she turned belligerent and began screaming at him. By Friday, a number of viral tweets of the video had been seen a mixed 17 million instances on Twitter.
Trena Hamidi, a co-owner of the Barbarossa Lounge, mentioned her bar’s presence within the video has led to a widespread false impression that Gwin is related along with her enterprise. In consequence, Hamidi instructed SFGATE the bar has acquired “tons of” of threatening calls, emails and social media messages within the days for the reason that video appeared on-line.
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“It is scary, it is undoubtedly scary,” she mentioned. “We clearly care concerning the security of our workers and our staff, so it is scary. It is actually irritating and difficult coping with the backlash of an incident that isn’t affiliated with us. It is nearly like we’re an harmless bystander, we bought caught within the background of that video and individuals are making this assumption that it was us. Some individuals have accomplished their due diligence … however many individuals usually are not.”
Hamidi mentioned the FBI reached out to the enterprise to let the house owners know that the company has been monitoring on-line chatter and detected “a number of” credible threats in opposition to the enterprise. Hamidi mentioned she was not conscious of the character of these threats, however added that the state of affairs led to an officer with the San Francisco Police Division being stationed outdoors the bar Tuesday evening.
The FBI workplace in San Francisco instructed SFGATE in an e mail that it would not affirm threats made in opposition to a person or entity, however mentioned the company does observe up on such threats with native regulation enforcement. A spokesperson with the San Francisco Police Division instructed SFGATE that the division is unable to verify whether or not the FBI was investigating any threats made in opposition to the Barbarossa Lounge.
Hamidi mentioned her staff have principally been fielding calls from offended members of the group, however mentioned she has acquired hateful and threatening messages on her bar’s social media pages as nicely. She mentioned lots of the messages concerned threats to get her bar shut down, or threats to report the lounge to the Higher Enterprise Bureau, a nonprofit that offers with client complaints. She mentioned the bar has additionally been closing early this week as a precaution.
Gwin, for his half, has appeared unrepentant. In an interview with SFGATE earlier this week, he mentioned he would spray the girl once more if introduced with the identical situation.
“In that state of affairs, the road was being washed and he or she refused to maneuver. She began screaming profanities, and changing into very belligerent,” he mentioned. “… And at that time, the cleansing on the road was directed extra in entrance of her.”
The door to Gwin’s gallery was allegedly smashed, and destructive Yelp opinions in current days drove the gallery’s ranking on the location to a one-star common.
Hamidi mentioned the backlash to the video is compounding the current injury accomplished to her bar by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We barely survived,” she mentioned. “We’re up and operational however we’re not at pre-COVID enterprise ranges by any means, and now to have this incident and to have our popularity dragged by means of the mud, it is making an already troublesome state of affairs unattainable.”
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