NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A famed New York City comedy club put up a sign this week warning its patrons not to assault its standup comedians after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards.
Stand Up NY posted the sign in its window on West 78th Street to discourage Smith copycats, with owner Dani Zoldan telling 1010 WINS on Thursday he was shocked by Smith’s now-infamous Oscars slap.
“Disbelief like the rest of the world,” Zoldan said. “It was just a shocking thing to watch. I mean I don’t want to be like overly dramatic, but yeah it was insane.”
Zoldan said comics hadn’t expressed concern about their safety and that the sign was “more of a statement about just heckling in general and perhaps like a warning you know, freedom of speech, freedom of expression should be protected.”
Zoldan said anybody who gets aggressive with comedians will be removed from his club immediately, a message conveyed in the new sign.
“Comedians play a critical role in our society, especially during times of chaos and uncertainty,” the sign reads. “They make us laugh, bring us perspective and remind us there are different ways of seeing our reality.”
“Comics must be protected,” the message continues. “Heckling and physical abuse of comics is prohibited, and patrons will be immediately removed from the showroom.”
The sign also includes a photo of a teary-eyed Smith accepting his best actor award shortly after the slap, along with the warning: “You: after being removed from the showroom.”
Zoldan said verbally heckling comedians is also wrong and that patrons will be thrown out if they do that too.
“There’s always been hecklers,” Zoldan said. “But especially lately, I feel like comedians have been attacked and canceled and have been told what they can and can’t say. And I think it’s a very dangerous road to go down, to censor, especially comedians, who are there to entertain us.”
Smith slapped Rock for making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, while presenting an Academy Award on Sunday.
“Jada, I love you. ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it,” Rock said, comparing Pinkett Smith’s buzzed haircut to Demi Moore’s haircut in the 1997 film “G.I. Jane.”
Pinkett Smith has alopecia, which can cause baldness.
Less than an hour after slapping and yelling profanities at Rock, Smith won the Oscar and was given a standing ovation.
Smith apologized to Rock in an Instagram post the next day.
At his first comedy show since the incident, Rock told a crowd Wednesday in Boston he was “still kind of processing what happened.”
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has condemned Smith striking Rock, and its board of governors met Wednesday to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for violations of the group’s standards of conduct.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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