An employee at a Conway restaurant has been fired after allowing a white supremacist meeting to be held after hours Saturday at the establishment.
Dawnel Verkler, owner of the Mean Bean Cafe on Dave Ward Drive near the University of Central Arkansas, said Monday that a longtime employee at the business asked if the restaurant could be used after hours for a "political meeting of a conservative group."
Verkler said she questioned the employee about the nature of the meeting before leaving town for the weekend.
"We were assured that no extremist or other hateful views would be exchanged," Verkler said in a statement posted on the restaurant's Facebook page.
But photos from the meeting posted online showed men holding up a flag emblazoned with a red-and-black swastika and wearing patches with other apparent neo-Nazi symbols.
Verkler declined to give the employee's name but said the employee has been fired.
Verkler told Arkansas Online that she believes the photos appeared on a political website before spreading to the restaurant's Facebook page and then onto Yelp, a popular crowdsourcing review website.
The images were deleted from the restaurant's Facebook page but still showed up Monday on Yelp, along with more than a dozen negative reviews about the meeting.
"If you're ever looking for the perfect place to hold a White Nationalist meeting, look no further. The hate flows just as pure as the coffee at the Mean Bean," one review read.
"Good food, but not worth having to sit with nazis," another read.
Verkler said she doesn't have a Yelp account and rarely uses social media, so she didn't find out about the posts until she began receiving phone calls from friends.
"I was disgusted and appalled," Verkler said. "We were led to believe it was a completely different situation. Had I been in town, that would not have been allowed."
Verkler posted two statements on the restaurant's Facebook page to explain her position.
"We in NO WAY support the group that held a meeting at the cafe yesterday," she said on the page. "We are appalled that the employee hijacked our business to provide a platform for hate and we absolutely denounce it and all forms of hate."
Verkler said she hopes people can direct their attention toward condemning hate rather than her restaurant.
"We support diversity," she said. "We support love."
Metro on 09/26/2017