Dayton woman organized event for local restaurant that fired Nazi sympathizer

A campaign has been organized to support the Dayton-area restaurant that fired a Nazi sympathizer who was recently profiled in a weekend “New York Times” article.

>> New York Times article on New Carlisle extremist brings condemnation

Dayton resident Sarah Caplan has organized the Facebook event "Support 571 Grill and Drafthouse," which will be held Dec. 11 to 18.

The event follows news that the 571 Grill owners and its staff has been harassed due the firing of Tony Hovater, his wife and his brother-in-law.

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“Now that the owners have fired the Hovaters, alt-right trolls are flooding their Google reviews with fraudulent claims of mistreatment,” Caplan told this news organization via Facebook Messenger. “I do not know anyone who works at 571 Grill and Drafthouse. I have not been in contact with them. I'm not doing this in any kind of official manner or with any kind of sanctioning from the establishment. I'm just a normal person who is using social media to help us all put our money where our mouth is.”

In an article published today, Hovater told the Washington Post that he, his wife and his wife's brother were fired from their jobs at 571 Grill on Milton-Carlisle Road in New Carlisle Monday.

>> RELATED: Local Nazi sympathizer says he’s lost his job and will move

The Facebook event description reads:

571 Grill and Drafthouse fired the New Carlisle Nazis and is now coming under fire from alt-right hate groups for doing so. I plan to go there and eat dinner sometime that week. I'd love people to join me, but I know it might be hard to get a big group together around the holidays. Bottom line: if you CAN, please support this local establishment and let them know we appreciate them and that we won't let hate win. One catch: If you go -- WRITE A GOOGLE REVIEW. Right now there are dozens of fraudulent reviews being posted on Google/Trip Adviser. Hopefully we can try to down out some of the hate.

In a statement published by the TippNews Daily, the restaurant's owners said they did not know about Hovater's white nationalist views before they were published in the Times.

A portion of the statement reads:


Since the release of this article, we have been swamped with phone calls and social media messages that are threatening and intimidating to both us and our employees. These hateful and disturbing messages are truly saddening to those of us who just want to serve delicious food and cold beers. 

Due to these very disturbing threats, the employee who was featured in the article suggested that we release him from employment. We have done so and have also released his wife and her brother who also worked for us. We felt it necessary to fully sever the relationship with them in hopes to protect our 20 other employees from the verbal and social media threats being made from individuals all over the country, and as far as Australia. We neither encourage nor support any forms of hate within our establishment.

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