Wheat Ridge Brewery Targeted After Hosting Conservative Discussion

By Ari Armstrong | Commentary, Complete Colorado

In a shocking turn of events, a Wheat Ridge brewpub actually (you might want to sit down for this one) recently allowed a group of customers meeting informally to discuss conservative politics to come inside to buy food and drinks. Among the participants was Barbara Kirkmeyer, a state senator and Republican candidate for governor. Scandalous!

If you restrict your media diet to conservative propaganda mouthpieces such as Westword and the Denver Post, you might think that the owner of the bar in question, Paul Porter, is just a guy who “has made a career of fixing chain restaurants and entertainment venues” and who runs an establishment that’s “ridiculously fun.” But that’s just what they want you to think.

Over on Reddit, “Actual Blue Patriot” revealed the real story and came up with a plan of action to deal with the threat: “The Werks owner is vehemently MAGA, and is hosting this gathering of Colorado ‘conservatives’ determined to ‘Make Colorado Great Again.’ Come join us in educating the local community that this ‘family friendly’ venue supports violence, felons and pedophiles.”

The staff and customers of Werks soon got a taste of this “education,” as Actual Blue Patriot and his comrades handed out flyers to people entering the establishment claiming that Werks supports a “toxic political ideology, things like misogyny, violence, xenophobia, homophobia, Christian nationalism, fascism, and pedophilia.”

“Choose inclusivity over divisiveness,” Actual Blue and co. urged in their flyer as they sought to punish the local business owner and his staff.

Werks owner speaks out

Okay, end sarcasm mode. The conservative Libs of TikTok Twitter/X account posted a video of Porter and a manager of Werks. Porter said his establishment “enjoys anybody and everybody who wants to come in and enjoy our space.” He continued, “We recently had a reservation . . . made for a meet and greet party to come and enjoy our space, enjoy our food and our drinks, as they should.” (Note: The bar also has six lanes of bowling, so sounds from that overlay the video.)

Porter said he and his staff were “exposed to . . . numerous days of harassing phone calls and emails and slander . . . which is the only reason we even found out about their political affiliation attached to this group to begin with. Because it is not a policy or anything of ours to vet or filter who can and cannot come into our business based on their religious and political beliefs.”

He continued, “So unfortunately this group decided to bring it to our attention and make a big deal out of this. So we became involved and became very concerned about how this would affect our team, specifically my staff, and how they felt about it, and the other patrons within our building.”

Porter said, “I fully support their right to peaceful protest and to express their opinions,” but he rejected the defamatory remarks. The flyers contained “personal slander towards myself,” he said; “they don’t even know who I am, know my name, know who we are as a team.”

A Werks supervisor, a gay black man, visibly upset about the language of the flyers, defended his boss. When I swung by Werks on my may home from the car repair shop recently, a bartender and a manager, both women, also defended Porter.

Can’t quit cancel culture

“Ash in Colorado,” as she’s known on X, advertised the September 28 Werks event weeks earlier. She called her group “Rocky Mountain Reckoning” (a bit intense for my tastes) and said the event was “a no-BS meetup to vibe with like-minded folks who don’t back down.”

Ash’s brand of politics is far from my own. She’s called the election conspiracy monger Mike Lindell, found by courts to have defamed two voting systems companies, “one of the greatest American patriots of our time.” I, on the other hand, agree with Porter that defaming business owners is bad.

Ash also has promoted anti-vax conspiracy mongering, the politically-driven indictment of James Comey, and the demonization of Tylenol (something I discuss elsewhere). And, apparently with no sense of irony, Ash encouraged people to cancel their Netflix accounts, because I guess businesses must be punished for hosting the “wrong” people. Elon Musk was mad at Netflix for hosting a show from 2022 that featured LGBTQ themes and whose director subsequently said (genuinely) horrible things about the killing of Charlie Kirk.

When cancel culture turns deadly

Sending a Twitter Mob or the like after people is mean. Distributing a flyer defaming a local business owner is bad. But cancel culture takes a much darker turn when people tolerate talk about literally cancelling human beings.

In a recent post, CU philosopher Michael Huemer points out what should be obvious: “Charlie Kirk was a human being. Killing human beings is normally wrong. . . . His wife was left without a husband, his children without a father. If you have trouble empathizing with him because of his political views, just think about a family member of yours who has conservative views (virtually everyone has one or more such person in their life). Imagine that someone murdered your family member because he was putting forth his political views.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT COMPLETE COLORADO

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.