A Florida diner made headlines this week when a sign posted in its window telling supporters of President Joe Biden not to come in went viral.
“If you voted for and continue to support and stand behind the worthless, inept and corrupt administration currently inhabiting the White House that is complicit in the death of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan, please take your business elsewhere,” said the sign posted at the DeBary Diner in DeBary, Fla., according to Fox 35 Orlando.
“It was the only thing I felt like I could do,” said restaurant owner, Angie Ugarte.
She posted the message last Thursday, when 13 service members were killed in Afghanistan during bomb attacks of evacuations at Kabul airport. While the Biden administration planned on pulling troops out of Afghanistan by this month after 20 years of occupation, they did not expect the Taliban to take over the country during the process or the subsequent violent events marring evacuation efforts.
Urgarte said she blames the Biden administration for the recent deaths.
“I was just angry. I was just let down. I felt like one of those mothers, or wives, or sisters who were gonna get that knock on the door,” she said of her sign.
Over five years of operating DeBary Diner, Ugarte said she found that many of her customers are veterans. An entire wall in the diner is even dedicated to members of the military.
“If you really, really still stand behind what’s allowed this to happen and the way it happened – which was unnecessary then I really don’t want to be associated with you in any way and I certainly don’t want your business,” she told FOX 35 News.
Ugarte said she has received mixed reactions to the sign.
Some people read it and walk away, while others come in and thank her.
“I wouldn’t go there. I don’t appreciate it,” resident Louis Vasquez told Fox 35.
“She has the right to not let anybody in the restaurant that supports a certain view,” Serenity Smith told the outlet.
Ugarte told the station that she plans to keep the sign up until Americans are no longer stranded in Afghanistan.
“We believe there are still a small number of Americans – under 200 and likely closer to 100 – who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Monday. He said around 6,000 U.S.
citizens had already been evacuated.
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