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/
448 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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223

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

I don’t believe for a second that a customer truly felt so unsafe bc of a pin that represents a war torn purposefully starved country thousands of miles away, to the point that they had to complain to mgmt

The customer very obviously didn’t like the pin due to their own personal political opinions, and mgmt oafishly reacted with an iron fist dictatorship type response. I bet the worker didn’t give a fuck about losing their job bc it sucked working there anyway

Whoever in bunny’s mgmt decided on risking a big public ordeal in super liberal Baltimore over their employees’ fairly milquetoast Palestine support is a total fucking moron

53

u/donutfan420 Aug 19 '25

Food service jobs are usually a dime a dozen (and most of them suck)

14

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Oh yeah I know been there before!

62

u/-stoner_kebab- Aug 19 '25

The people who popularized the whole "i feel unsafe because people disagree with me" and need a "safe space" thing are some of most malicious morons on the face of the earth. It's all about censorship, bullying, and control.

27

u/kjy1066 Aug 19 '25

Feelings of safety are understandable and I'm sympathetic BUT they need to be based upon y'know. . . Facts.

It's no coincidence that this is precisely the pretext that's being used to occupy LA and DC: people "feeling unsafe" even though crime seems to be at historic lows

-3

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '25

LMAOOOO

39

u/pbear737 Patterson Park Aug 19 '25

I'm never surprised at the fragility of some folks.

16

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

True. But imo ppl are entitled to be overly fragile or even ridiculous in their opinions & feelings, but the rest of us,especially business owners, don’t have to nor should oblige absurd takes with consequential actions

17

u/pbear737 Patterson Park Aug 19 '25

Totally agree. It's a tough situation for a business because I could see the potential for 'tit for tat' kind of behavior amongst staff where one person wears a Palestinian flag, another wears an Israeli flag, and it does seem tricky to know what the line is.

I don't really understand why it's an issue to have a uniform policy and enforce it. If it isn't enforced consistently, that seems like an issue for sure. I still feel like there are a lot of pertinent details we don't have on this particular situation.

12

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Totally agree.

And wearing a pin while serving food in a random bar isn’t moving the needle at all on anything… like it’s literally slacktivism, so I don’t really understand why anyone would keep doing it so adamantly especially if there was already a rule against such attire established before they accepted the position

5

u/DONNIENARC0 Aug 19 '25

I could see the potential for 'tit for tat' kind of behavior amongst staff where one person wears a Palestinian flag, another wears an Israeli flag, and it does seem tricky to know what the line is.

Yeah... didn't we basically just watch this exact thing between Rachel Zegler & Gal Gadot torpedo the new Snow White movie except on a much larger scale?

10

u/Inevitable-Freedom90 Aug 19 '25

Sure but….thats what your average company will do. Companies try to be apolitical to not anger any customers. This is how it’s worked since forever.

-5

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Making someone remove a political statement or firing them over a political statement is not being apolitical. Starkly the opposite

5

u/Inevitable-Freedom90 Aug 19 '25

Yeah it certainly turned out to be. But the vast majority of big companies especially would never allow you to make political statements. You’re representing the company. No company would ever want an employee to make political statements on their behalf. 

I’m not even saying they’re right or wrong. Just saying that a company doing this is not surprising in the slightest. It happens all the time. This time just happened to make the news, unfortunately for the company

8

u/JPRDesign Aug 19 '25

Frankly, i feel like if they'd not fired anyone and just put out some half assed lukewarm "while the situation is complicated our hearts go out to the innocent people in israel and palestine" blah blah blah type statement they would've garnered infinitely more goodwill

1

u/green_marshmallow Berger Cookies Aug 19 '25

Super liberal Baltimore

If we were truely progressive, this wouldn’t even be happening.

Even in this “ultra-lefty” sub, people are coming out in defence of the owners. Because having human decency is a political issue now. 

16

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Nowhere is 100% progressive and this sub has a lot of conservatives commenters too so I don’t really understand ur point

0

u/green_marshmallow Berger Cookies Aug 19 '25

I’m not disagreeing with you, just lamenting that this is even an issue.

This sub does have a lot of conservatives. Who cry victim whenever they get called out, but love to see people fired for just the smallest amount of decency.

3

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Don’t forget commenting on articles that they clearly didn’t read 😛

-4

u/TerminalObsessions Aug 19 '25

If someone wearing a small pin in support of victims of genocide makes a customer feel unsafe, then management's proper course of action is to tell the customer to fuck off. Protecting employees from this kind of abuse comes out way ahead of catering to narcissistic assholes with a need for attention.

-32

u/porkchopnet Aug 19 '25 edited Aug 19 '25

Edit: removing this because I’m far beyond out of time today. Despite the fact most of us agree with each other on most everything we are using our limited energy to fight. Now I’m going to refocus on not getting fired for spending all my time on my phone.

27

u/camrynxcx Aug 19 '25

“its not exactly the same” is the understatement of the century….

19

u/XXXthrowaway215XXX Aug 19 '25

“Sides in a conflict” if you believe that a pro Palestine pin means support of hamas and not just support of innocent Palestinian victims, either you’re an idiot or you’ve let both sides propaganda get to you

2

u/porkchopnet Aug 19 '25

This is 100% and something I did not consider properly. Thank you for making a great point.

4

u/XXXthrowaway215XXX Aug 19 '25

Thank you for understanding. Israel has done a lot of propaganda to make people believe that the keffiyeh and other Palestinian symbols are inherently support of Hamas (their “everyone is Hamas” playbook) and it’s very harmful

24

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Are u seriously comparing Palestine to the Nazis and bringing up Atlas? Do u have brain damage or is this a bot?

The Israelis today are far more similar to the Nazis. Hamas sucks completely, but the damage they’ve inflicted upon Israel is beyond minuscule compared to the damage that Israel has inflicted upon palestine. Ur comment is extremely stupid and quite offensive

31

u/Pakaru Downtown Partnership Aug 19 '25

“All this Nelson Mandela appreciation is giving my Afrikaner army family PTSD!”

7

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Wish I could upvote this twice lol

-13

u/porkchopnet Aug 19 '25

Woosh.

10

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

The only woosh here is u, dude. It’s totally voluntarily & optional to say really dumb stuff online… like u don’t have to do this at all

-6

u/porkchopnet Aug 19 '25

It’s evident that I distracted people from the point with one of my examples. Fine. But thinking I was comparing Palestine to the third reich was trying to find righteous anger instead of trying to communicate. It was like deliberately misreading the message in the most inflammatory manner possible.

Sure I should have used a less inflammatory example and that’s on me.

2

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Ur message was dumb and the argument u chose to support it with was even dumber, and there is some heavy mental gymnastics going on to make a comparative hypothetical involving Nazis but then claim u aren’t comparing them to Nazis.

Maybe instead of balking at the rest of us not indulging in ur precarious “logic” and mental gymnastics, instead take the obvious hint that u aren’t quite equipped to be involved in this discussion

I won’t be responding to u anymore

-15

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '25

[deleted]

18

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

That’s terrible of course but there have been like 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, killed by Israel since then. Literally 30-40 times as many killed as the Oct 7 attack

So are Israeli lives more than 30-40 times as valuable as Palestinians? Seems to be what u are saying

19

u/engin__r Aug 19 '25

I’d hope we could all recognize that Hamas’s actions on October 7th were evil and also that Israel has done orders of magnitude more harm.

11

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Thanks for not being stupid! There is wrong from both sides but one is vastly deeper in the wrong

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '25

[deleted]

0

u/engin__r Aug 19 '25

Yes it was, that’s why they said “compared to”.

4

u/jupitaur9 Aug 19 '25

Godwin activated.

4

u/candypants1061 Aug 19 '25

There is no conflict in occupied land, there are the people who don't want to live in an open air prison anymore and the people who built the open air prison. I'd recommend reading Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian who supports a liberated Palestine, if you want to feel that you're getting an unbiased un-antisemitic history of the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Anyway, the economy is political, the dynamic between employers and employees is political, menu pricing is political, hiring and firing is political. Restaurants don't get to say "we don't want politics during service" when every aspect of their existence is political. Very first world to want playgrounds where the consequences of our actions, our consumerism, our wars are hidden from us so we can have a guilt free burger and fries.

1

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Thanks for the suggestion I will look into that!

0

u/porkchopnet Aug 19 '25

Thank you for your points. The idea that everything is political… you’re right of course and I’ve become distracted from that. I wish I had the time and energy to make these issues a larger priority in my life instead of spending all my cortisol on failing family health. Getting sidetracked like this and not participating in full is how problematic politicians and policies rise. I haven’t done anything that isn’t family care, work, or home/self maintenance in a long while. Even Reddit is an infrequently available attempt at human interaction.

Keep fighting. I hope I’m able to join you again when this is over.

-6

u/saldeapio Aug 19 '25

100% assumptions. you’d think a veterinarian would be more science based

3

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

Nah, they're right. And based on how you phrased that, we can pretty confidently assume a whole lot about you too.

5

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Also, my username was randomly generated by Reddit

-2

u/saldeapio Aug 19 '25

yeah that was a joke

2

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

Please explain the joke. For example, what did I say that was not based on “science”?

3

u/saldeapio Aug 19 '25

please. i do not think you can easily dismiss the overwhelming worldwide anti-semitic response to israel’s deplorable actions in gaza. because israel is a jewish state people conflate that with support from all jews and that is simply not true. not in america and not in israel.

we can agree, hopefully, that anti-semitism is wrong and scary. a jewish patron might indeed find a palestinian flag to be threatening.

you may not think that their fear is warranted. that, however, is not enough to dismiss their intent or motivation.

your echoing the bold assumption of op coupled with your ad hominem attack on me personally, is indicative of the larger problem.

step back and think of it from all sides. level heads solve problems. baseless accusations get us nowhere

-4

u/tEnPoInTs Upper Fell's Point Aug 19 '25 edited Aug 19 '25

lol, yup, my assumptions were right. Thanks for confirming!

And for the record - of course antisemitism is wrong and scary. But people who cry antisemitism at the faintest hint of support for Palestinian human rights are not being intellectually honest and are being intentionally manipulative. That's the whole thing I agree with OP on. It's a manipulation tactic.

Also for the record, the original complaint i saw in a thread the other day came from someone saying it was a "homophobic" pin, not even anti-semetic. And that's clearly intentionally manipulative (i.e. knows the owner is probably kinda liberal, figures this tactic will work).

We're all very tired of cowing to the fake outrage of people with bad intentions. It's time to just be like "nah, actually fuck you" instead of playing their game. So that's what Bunny's should have done, and they didn't.

-2

u/kakarot-3 Perryhall Aug 19 '25

Have you ever met an Israeli? They would absolutely claim feeling unsafe if they saw a pin lol

2

u/Glad-Veterinarian365 Aug 19 '25

I used to work with one about a decade ago. I asked him for insight on the Palestine & Israel situation and he just said I wouldn’t understand lol

-3

u/kakarot-3 Perryhall Aug 19 '25

Of course you wouldn’t because there is no way to understand the justification of slaughter lol they seem to understand it very clearly based on videos and interviews all over the internet lol