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It started as a joke.
Portland bar Paydirt, at the Zipper food mall on Sandy Boulevard, put a little note at the bottom of its receipts around five months ago.
"Punch Steve Bannon," says the receipt. "Get Free Whiskey For Life."
It took a while for the right to take notice, but he reaction was somewhat predictable yesterday:
Infowars, the website of notable asshole Alex Jones, reposted an article from rightist blog Big League Politics today: "Drinking establishment encourages anti-Trump leftist violence… Imagine the outrage if someone on the right solicited violence against anyone in the Obama administration, they would immediately be branded domestic right-wing terrorists [comma splice sic]."
The horrors continue at Paydirt: "Located at 2724 NE Pacific," said writer Cassandra Fairbanks on Twitter: "Paydirt previously donated a portion of their inauguration day sales to Planned Parenthood."
Leaving aside the potential wisdom of offering tongue-in-cheek incentives to commit violence against an aide to the president and former National Security Council member, the bar yesterday began to receive death threats from all across the country, prompting owner (and former Portland Mercury Music Editor) Ezra Caraeff to change the receipts and lock down his Twitter account. His account received an endless scroll of death threats,the bartender said Sunday night. Meanhwile, one of the recommended reviews on the bar's Yelp page contains a "review" calling for the sexual assault of Elizabeth Warren.
The bar's Facebook page is also disabled.
"I have an inbox full of threatening e-mail, so I decided to edit it until the Pepes chilled out," Caraeff tells WW. "I just set our Twitter account to private because I couldn't keep up with all the people saying they are going to burn me alive at the bar. Good times."
At the bar Sunday night, the bartenders mostly just stared at the phone when it rang, again and again and again. Finally, after repeated calls, they decided to pick up.
"This guy says he's going to slap the shit out of me," the bartender told us
.
Caraeff's Twitter account is currently locked, but at 5:44 pm Sunday he wrote:
"Say something nice at my funeral," Caraeff tells WW.