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| Pagliai's Pizza located on 945 South Main Street, Bowling Green, Ohio |
By Brian Bohnert
Reporter
A local business is the subject of a Facebook movement for a boycott due to allegations that the business has taken a strong stance against a set of antidiscrimination ordinances that are on the ballot for the Tuesday's election.
Pagliai's Pizza is being accused by the Facebook group known as "Boycott Pagliai's (Pollyeyes) Pizza" of placing a sign outside of the establishment that urges people to vote "No" on Propositions 7905 and 7906. The ordinances are designed to grant protection against discrimination in housing, public education, employment and public accommodations to groups not already protected at a state or national level. These ordinances, if passed, will prevent discrimination based on factors such as gender, sexual preferences, pregnancy, veteran status, marital status, gender identity and being HIV positive.
"The ordinances publicly affirm our city as a welcoming community that stands behind the rights of individuals, including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, to work, live, go to school, raise a family, start a business and put down roots without fear of discrimination," according to the ONE Bowling Green website. ONE Bowling Green is a grassroots organization set up by members of the community to back the ordinances.
"Boycott Pagliai's" currently has 310 members who are concerned with ending the discrimination that the restaurant is accused of promoting. One member is University sophomore Cherno Biko.
"I was invited to the page fairly late in the game," he said. "It was created on Tuesday, and I began commenting on Friday morning."
Being concerned, Biko said he called Campus Pollyeyes, a pizzeria under the same ownership as Pagliai's Pizza. He spoke with someone to gather more information as to whether or not the business had a specific stance on the two anti-discrimination ordinances. The answer Biko said he received was extremely surprising and unnerving to him.
"[The employee] explained to me that he thinks that there are enough laws on the books and that he did not support the anti-discrimination ordinances," Biko said. "After that moment, I became personally invested in the boycott."
Biko also mentioned this was a hard decision for him to make because he has always been a fan of Pollyeyes.
"As a former patron of that restaurant, it was saddening to realize that I would never again eat one of their famous stuffed breadsticks," Biko said.
The issues on the ballot are important to Biko, and he feels if a business is standing strongly against these ordinances, than it is hurting the community and the world in the long run.
"This is a problem," he said. "People who oppose these ordinances are sending the message that I am not worth protecting, that only my blackness should be protected, not my sexual orientation or my gender."
However, management of the local pizzeria had a much different story. Acting president of Pagliai's Pizza, Scott Nicholson, said this was all a misunderstanding and the placing of the political sign was an action carried out by one single employee. Since then, the business received an abundance of negative feedback from it, he said.
"It was done by one individual that took the liberty upon himself to put that sign out there," Nicholson said. "We do not take a political stance on these issues, and we under no means discriminate."
The sign was placed outside while Nicholson and his wife were on vacation, he said. Once he found out the sign was there, he immediately ordered that it be taken down.
"We actually received a call from a good friend of ours about the sign and once I got the call, I made some calls and had it taken down immediately," Nicholson said.
He said that the business has been serving the community of Bowling Green for more than 40 years, and it has made a point of treating everyone fairly and equally.
Nicholson, assuming ONE BG was behind the boycott, wrote a letter to the coalition, explaining the placing of the sign was simply a misunderstanding.
However, ONE BG was not apart of the effort, Nicholson said.
The creator of the Facebook page still remains a mystery, Biko said.
The boycott may or may not have any long-term influence on Pagliai's business, but Biko knows for sure he will be voting for a cause that is important for him and his community. This is much bigger than just a movement against a pizza place, he said.
"I am glad that we can learn from our past," he said. "I am glad that the road to justice was already paved, and I am glad that my community bravely chose to walk that road."
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