A man shut down his New York restaurant after a blogger accused him of being associated with alt-right group “Proud Boys.”
32-year-old Guy Sands the owner of Sands Cafe in Brooklyn said he’s closed down his business because of “organized threats.” He shut down the shop on Sept. 26 and never detailed when it would be back up and running for business.
(photo credit: sands bar website)
Sands was blasted by blogger Colin Hagendorf who claimed in a tweet that the Willamsburg cafe owner was a Proud Boy and “used to have an active alt-right twitter, but nuked it before opening this sh-tty restaurant.” The tweet also stated that the owner attended a 2016 party organized by controversial alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos. The tweet went viral, being shared over 700 times and the restaurant’s Yelp rating went down to 2.5 stars.
The 32-year-old defended his character and told Eater.Com in an email, “I do not associate or identify with these groups in any way. Sands welcomes everybody.”
The building owner of the cafe Stephen Terry told the New York Post that Sands’ lease for five years is fully paid.
“He took that allegation very hard. I was very much looking forward to this being a successful venture,” said Terry. “I don’t know why this happened. It’s kind of unbelievable.”
A large group of white men who identified themselves as Proud Boys were caught on tape in October, beating up protesters outside of a Republican event in New York City while shouting “faggot” and “cocksucker.” However, the New York Police Department did not make any arrests and said it would be “reviewing additional video and other evidence” according to Buzzfeed.
