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The owner of Portland sports bars The Cheerful Tortoise and The Cheerful Bullpen has drawn online furor by posting on a social media thread with a noteworthy story: Amy Nichols said she withdrew her sponsorship of the Portland Pickles wooden-bat baseball team because it hosted drag performers at the ballpark.
“I had my business Cheerful Tortoise sponsor the Portland Pickles,” reads a Facebook comment posted under Nichols’ name that was widely shared over the past month. “As soon as they did drag night I pulled my sponsorship and got my $ back. Unreal what is happening at the baseball field. (In a bar for drag queens great but any place that is not 21 and over! Hard NO!!) leave our kids alone.”
It’s not clear when exactly bar owner Amy Nichols posted her comments, though the Facebook thread where they appeared started early this month. The comment was deleted amid criticism from Portland’s LGBTQ+ community, although Nichols has implicitly conceded that she wrote it. By Sept. 14, she posted an apology video to The Cheerful Tortoise’s Instagram account, noting her past support of LGBTQ+ fundraiser the Red Dress Party.
While some of the immediate context around the social media post remains murky, WW has confirmed the underlying story: Nichols withdrew her sponsorship this past May after she learned of an event called “Dillon’s Drag Race.” (Dillion is the Pickles’ mascot, an anthropomorphic pickle.)
Alan Miller, owner of the Portland Pickles baseball team, confirmed to WW that the Pickles refunded The Cheerful Tortoise’s sponsorship after Nichols emailed to complain about the Dillon’s Drag Race programming.
The event was held June 1, and Darcelle XV Showplace’s cast members appeared alongside the Pickles’ mascot, Dillon, to entertain the audience of a game against the Ridgefield Raptors. Miller says that Darcelle’s cast waved, cheered and occasionally sang to the audience.
“This happened four months ago,” Miller says. “I don’t know why she continues to talk about this or bring this up. It’s disgusting, in my opinion.”
At the time, Nichols was running for the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners. (She would finish a distant second to incumbent Commissioner Martha Schrader.) In an email to the Pickles dated May 20—the day before Clackamas County’s primary election—Nichols reiterated her stance that drag art is unacceptable for children.
“Do we allow strippers to attend and honor them at a baseball game?” Nichols wrote. “(Didn’t think so, drag shows belong in venues 18 or 21 plus).”
Miller says the Pickles quickly returned her money.
“We are an inclusive environment, and we want all people to feel welcome at Pickles games,” Miller says. “At the end of the day, giving back a minimal amount of money was no problem to us.”
Nichols confirmed to WW she pulled Cheerful Tortoise’s sponsorship from the Portland Pickles. She also told WW that she took issue with the Strip City night—which saw Dillon pass out strips of masking tape in a cheeky “ode to the Vegas skyline”—and a July 27 event called “Space Pix 2: Journey to Uranus,” which saw Dillon launch pickles on rockets to the distant planet after last year’s event launched pickles at Earth’s moon.
“I should have been more clear either way that the main reason for my sponsorship pull was Uranus & stripper post,” Nichols wrote via text message. “I am not-anti-drag or homophobic. I don’t support any sexualization to kids [sic]. Stripping, show girls, if drag is dancing similar to strip show it’s not appropriate, let kids be kids.”
Nichols’ email to the Pickles, and her social media post, do not mention these events.
Drag art rarely uses dance choreography anywhere off the RuPaul’s Drag Race runway. While some artists wear risqué costumes, calling all drag sexual would be like categorizing all songs as hook-up music. For the most part, drag artists are gig workers performing for tips to match their usually low base fees. As Drag Race and larger queer social acceptance have pulled the artform from the fringes, drag artists have been targeted by conservatives pushing a narrative that such performers are “grooming” children.
“I realize from the outside that post sounds absolutely horrible and I’m mortified that people think I don’t support the community,” Nichols wrote via email to WW on Sept. 12, touting her past sponsorship of the Red Dress Party, a long-running HIV/AIDS fundraiser that shuttered earlier this year due to lack of sponsorship. “If I’m truly homophobic and a bigot, I would not have sponsored those events.…It’s heartbreaking this is what our community has come to, people just spewing hate and trying to take businesses out of downtown Portland because no one will take the time to ask questions.”
Nichols offered WW a detailed timeline of social media posts that she says she made between her May refund request, and when she claims the Portland Pickles caved to social media pressure in August. But she would not confirm to WW when she made the social media post in question.
Miller says the Pickles swiftly refunded the sponsorship money, and he was unaware that Nichols was still talking about the refund until her comment went viral.
“From an audience perspective, we had more people there [at Dillon’s Drag Race] than almost any other night,” Miller says. “We’re going to continue to do these things.”