Weathered Waves, a Salt Lake City cider bar, declared Monday on Instagram that Zionists were “forever” banned from the establishment.
Michael Valentine, the owner of the Six Sailor Cider group that this bar belongs to, previously ran as a candidate for mayor of Salt Lake City in 2023, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The new bar had just received its license to operate in a mall four days prior to its Monday post.
“We are a business, but we are also human. We don’t make and sell cider for robots,” the post read in part. “We are horrified by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and are even more horrified to see so many Americans ignore and rationalize ethnic cleansing. That is why we are pleased to announce we are banning all Zionists forever from our establishments. Zionism is hate speech, it is white supremacy and has nothing to do with the beautiful Jewish faith. We stand firmly with the people of Gaza and humanity. We dream of a free and prosperous Palestine.”
‘No Zionists allowed’ at new SLC bar, says owner Michael Valentine, former mayoral candidate https://t.co/5YaYRRvtzp
— The Salt Lake Tribune (@sltrib) March 6, 2024
The bar then called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Valentine admitted in an interview that he was the one who wrote the post and did not see any of it as antisemitic, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Valentine claimed to have received many threatening messages since the post, the outlet reported.
“And for the record, we are banning zionists, not Jews. The exact same way we ban neo-nazis and white supremacists and not Christians,” Valentine later posted on his personal Instagram page. The bar’s Instagram mirrored this language when it posted “No Nazis[,] No Racists[,] No Zionists[.] Pretty easy rule to have.” (RELATED: Pro-Palestine Author Appears To Defend Protesters’ Right To *Checks Notes* Hijack Airplanes)
The remarks nevertheless prompted the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services to ask the office of the state Attorney General to open an investigation to see if any “discrimination laws” were being broken, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The vast majority of American Jews consider caring about Israel as an “important” or “essential” element to what defines their Jewishness, according to a 2021 Pew survey.