Kyle Rittenhouse rally refusal prompts backlash for Texas brewery
Jenny Goldsberry
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A brewery in Texas is facing backlash for refusing to rent a space for a rally in the name of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Southern Star Brewing Company announced in various social media posts Friday that it would no longer host the “Rally Against Censorship” scheduled for Jan. 26 on its 13.5-acre property. Along with Rittenhouse, speakers include former Navy SEAL Justin Sheffield and Daniel Miller of the Texas Nationalist Movement and Defiant Press Publishing’s David Roberts and Cassandra Spencer.
“We charge a fee, and we generally don’t discriminate or vet people,” CEO Dave Fougeron told the Washington Examiner as he explained the rental process.”We’ve had political stuff before we didn’t know it was going to be a political rally. They told us it would be a free speech rally. They said they were going to have a secret special guest.”
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https://twitter.com/southernstarbc/status/1613971170285453312
A few days before the brewery announced the event was canceled, Fougeron said Defiant Press Publishing announced in a press release that the secret special guest was Rittenhouse. Fougeron said he took no issue with Rittenhouse, but he asked that the brewery’s logo be removed from the release.
Rittenhouse was at the center of a 2020 incident in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in which he shot three men, killing two. The 20-year-old was acquitted of all charges in 2021.
However, once news outlets began circulating that the event would take place at Southern Star, Fougeron received complaints from his customers. He said that his customers were his motivating factor to cancel the event and told the organizers so in a phone call. Among the complaints was a communication Fougeron allegedly had with a buyer who was worried about how the event might affect sales.
“I don’t want to alienate my customers,” Fougeron said.
Roberts would go on to write that Fougeron had instead been influenced by his brewery’s sponsor, H-E-B Grocery Stores. This release prompted threats to the brewery, according to Fougeron.
“It’s not until H-E-B threatened to end their business with them that they decided to pull our event,” Roberts wrote in a subsequent release. “Clearly money talks and values walk for Southern Star.”
“That was a blatant lie,” Fougeron said of the release. “A lie that I could potentially file a lawsuit over.”
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The rally will go on, and the organizers are continuing to solicit reservations as they search for a new venue.