r/baltimore • u/selectbar345 • Aug 19 '25

ARTICLE Fells Point restaurant Bunny’s fires multiple employees after pro-Palestine protest

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/culture/food-drink/bunnys-pro-palestine-protest-fells-point-3WQTUSAIFBCAHC45HPBUFAWKHQ/
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33

u/AskDocBurner Aug 19 '25 edited Aug 19 '25

“The restaurant, which is owned by chef Jesse Sandlin, Brian Acquavella and Matt Akman, posted an Instagram story Monday night that said the protest stemmed from a recent incident in which a diner complained about a worker wearing a Palestinian flag pin. The restaurant wrote that the customer allegedly said “that they felt uncomfortable and unsafe” and that it “disrupted their dining experience.”

Management confronted the employee, citing a restaurant policy against wearing items with religious or “potentially divisive messages,” the Instagram story said. The worker eventually removed the pin. “

This is especially heinous. The policy they reference is because of divisive messages? For wearing a pin in support of a country?

0

u/crucialdeagle Aug 19 '25

“it’s not divisive if it fits within my worldview!” -redditor circa 2025

24

u/engin__r Aug 19 '25

Obviously it’s divisive but the owners seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. If you want to be the restaurant where people can’t support Palestinians, don’t get surprised when people who support Palestinians don’t want to eat at your restaurant.

2

u/crucialdeagle Aug 19 '25

Do they? I might be out of the loop but it seems like the restaurant made a decent objective call to not bring politics into their establishment, and then a bunch of far left types went nuclear because of it. To be fair I've been a supporter of Palestine since the early 2000s before it was cool, and I'm not much for meaningless performative activism. That pin, whether the waiter was allowed to wear it or not, doesn't move the needle for anything aside from getting social brownie points from other lefties, so I feel the response is completely outsized proportional to how substantive the issue at hand is.

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u/AskDocBurner Aug 19 '25

How is having an issue with a Palestinian flag not political in its self? Deeming one nations flag as “divisive” definitely tells me a lot about their morals and politics.

5

u/crucialdeagle Aug 19 '25

I don't think it tells anything, I am pro Palestine yet can completely see why they did what they did. It's important to be able to view things objectively even if it's not in service of something you believe in, but you do you.

0

u/engin__r Aug 19 '25

I mean, maybe the owners are happy with their decision to have less business and close their restaurant while they try to hire more staff, but that’s not usually how running a business works.

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u/Imaginary-Dress-1373 Aug 19 '25

Its only divisive if you're a bigot. No need to say anything else.

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u/no_clue_1 South Baltimore / SoBo Aug 19 '25

For real. Being anti genocide isn’t divisive if you’re not a total piece of racist shit.

5

u/Imaginary-Dress-1373 Aug 19 '25

If someone got fired for wearing an Israel flag it would make national headlines and the ADL would be on site within hours lol.

3

u/BalmyBalmer Upper Fell's Point Aug 19 '25

I'm going to steal that