San Fran Restaurant Apologizes After Refusing Service to Armed and Uniformed Cops
At first the owners of Hilda and Jesse said they would serve the cops when they are off-duty, out of uniform, and without their weapons.
Kristina Liedags Compton and Rachel Silcocks, co-owners of the San Francisco restaurant Hilda and Jesse, apologized after asking armed police officers to leave the place on Friday.
Compton and Silcocks explained on Instagram on Saturday:
Another statement, though, appeared on Twitter:
Official response from one of the owners of Hilda and Jesse pic.twitter.com/veshjMekxc
— Stanley Roberts (@StanleyRoberts) December 4, 2021
San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Chief Scott responded on Twitter:
(1/3) Community engagement is a core principle of SFPD’s 21st century police reforms, and we are intentional about asking our officers to support local businesses and get to know those they’re sworn to safeguard. https://t.co/nJsk4hy0tB
— SFPD Chief Scott (@SFPDChief) December 5, 2021
(3/3) I believe the vast majority of San Franciscans welcome their police officers, who deserve to know that they are appreciated for the difficult job we ask them to do — in their uniforms — to keep our neighborhoods and businesses safe.
— SFPD Chief Scott (@SFPDChief) December 5, 2021
Word spread quickly about the incident, which led to negative backlash. People gave Hilda and Jesse one-star reviews on Yelp. Others lashed out on social media.
I looked on Google and it looks like they removed any recent bad reviews. The place still has a 1.4 rating out of five, but the newest written review is from three days ago and it’s a five-star rating.
I went on Yelp. The company alerts you that they are monitoring Hilda and Jesse’s Yelp page closely due to increased activity. Quite a few reviews come from people not in San Francisco.
Dale C. in Windsor, CA: “I would not support or recommend a San Francisco business that discriminates against the SFPD. Shame on you!!! May the eggs of a Thousand Cockroach’s hatch and infest your kitchen. I hope the Health Department Shuts you down….”
Joseph A. in San Francisco is a gay man: “Given that this business has decided to Discriminate against first responders, I reserve the right to Call For A Boycott Of Hilda and Jesse. Because if Hilda and Jesse can discriminate against an officer on Lunch, then what is to stop them from doing the same to Health Care Workers due to a fear of COVID. I am an Out Gay Man in SF, and I find the misrepresentation that the LGBTQ community needs protection from the SFPD to be offensive.”
Local resident John Perri: “So bummed this happened in my neighborhood. Never had the food at this new restaurant. But it could not possibly be good enough to cover the bad taste this leaves.”
Another resident said, “It’s her restaurant she can do what she wants. Who wants to be eating lunch next to someone with a weapon.”
I don’t mind eating next to someone with a weapon. But yes, the two ladies have every right to refuse service to anyone. If they want to refuse to serve armed police officers that’s fine.
But don’t be shocked when you get blowback. That’s probably why Compton and Silcocks apologized on Sunday.
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Translation:
“We climbed upon our high horse to show how much we despise police, and hope that they are defunded and replaced by social workers.
We further implied that we speak for the the BIPOC and LGTB community by insisting that this restaurant is a safe space for them.
However, we didn’t realize the cultural appropriation would create such a blowback that we now have to pretend to apologize and take back what we really feel about the situation to save face.”
The owners may have every right to virtue signal and refuse service as they see fit. I, on the other hand, have the right to patronize a business that appreciates my business. Apology not accepted.
And criminals have the privilege in San Francisco to pillage a private business as it pleases them – especially one they know is free of police presence.
Sounds like the Jussie Smollet defense.
As a G, I sure as hell do NOT approve.
Sorry, not sorry. You went on social media virtue signaling your action like you deserved accolades. Now live with it in your craphole of a city wokesters like you destroyed
If I’m a bad guy this place sits at the top of my list to ambush.
And if I’m a SFO cop, this place sits at the bottom of my list of the businesses I’m going to rush to the aid of particularly if that aid jeopardizes my individual safety in any possible way….
….which is another reason if you’re a bad guy, the place is on the top of your list.
(some) People love to hate the police right up until the time they’ve become a victim of crime themselves.
Exactly. I have no sympathy for disgusting people like these owners.
What part of “get woke go broke”did you needed explaining?
I just moved to a small town in Idaho. We went to the local pizza joint; I saw 2-3 people in separate parties open-carrying. Not even officers in uniform. Just the average citizen enjoying a night out for pizza and a beer.
I feel very safe in my new home.
I forget where I read this… probably in some of John Lott’s work, but CHL holders commit violent crime at a lesser rate than police officers.
Welcome to the rural west. Up until recently in MT, it required a carry permit to carry within the city limits. So you got one, but mostly because they count as background checks for buying guns. Our Justice of the Peace (who does all arraignments, and tries misdemeanor cases) puts on firearms classes. The result is that most everyone in the courthouse has a carry permit. He, off course, carries under his robe.
The thing that you will likely soon learn is that most of the guys have truck guns, usually a handgun, in the glove compartment, often a pocket gun of some sort, and hunting and varmint guns at home.
Nobody gets shot, if they don’t deserve it, and no one, except maybe tourists, looks twice at open carry, unless they are carrying something interesting. Then you can comment on the gun. I mostly openly carry Glocks, so no one ever asks me, but I will ask someone if I don’t recognize what they are carrying, esp if the gun is not plastic. Just polite.
I carry every day in rural America. It’s at the point where I don’t even think about it. My gun is part of getting dressed in the morning. No hyperbole. I have a mixed view of open carry. Part of me likes it. Another part of me thinks it’s too risky.
Yep. Very rural here. My dad got me my first pistol at 12 because I got treed by some hogs that didn’t like me in their area. Carried in the woods every since. Most of the men I know do the same and have a similar story.
“So you got one, but mostly because they count as background checks for buying guns.”
And also, because if you travel out of state, it can often serve as a license for other states.
https://crimeresearch.org/2015/02/comparing-conviction-rates-between-police-and-concealed-carry-permit-holders/
It’s striking how disconnected these folks are. Most LEO are going to carry off duty, some dept require it. So in or out of uniform, on duty or off, the overwhelming majority of LEO will have a firearm. Further, most jurisdiction require sworn officers to act even off duty. In any event they retain arrest powers 24/7.
With less funding and less officers on the payroll these SF LEO likely don’t have a great deal of off duty time anyway. I can certainly say that I would not elevate the priority of a call to this establishment if I was an SF LEO to respond quicker if given the option.
“So in or out of uniform, on duty or off, the overwhelming majority of LEO will have a firearm.”
The point being that these idiots “don’t feel safe” if they are in the presence of firearms they can see, but “feel safe” as long as they can’t see the firearms that are still there.
One of my goto bloggers, David Codrea, refers to this as the “Ravenous Bugblatter Beast” principle, after the Douglas Adams creature that loses the ability to see its prey if the prey takes steps not to look at the Beast.
I will defend the owners’ right to kick out cops to my death. Of course, they will be out of business long before that, so it’s not much of a pledge.
SFPD officers should adopt the sidewalk in front of the store as their new hangout during peak business hours — not spend a penny inside.
Well, given that wild horses couldn’t drag me to SF, I don’t much care about this. Other than if somebody shows up with a machete and has a slashing fit in the place and it takes the cops an hour to get there, I will celebrate the schadenfreude of the moment.
I’m so sick of the infantile and vindictive Dhimmi-crats’ obnoxious rudeness and disrespect towards law enforcement officers. The Dhimmi-crats are happy to vilify law enforcement officers, while simultaneously venerating illegal aliens, criminals, Muslim supremacists/terrorists and other assorted reprobates.
“Who wants to be eating lunch next to someone with a weapon.”
Sheep hate sheepdogs…until the wolf shows up. Then the whole flock of sheep try to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
“Who wants to be eating lunch next to someone with a weapon.”
Other than every Beautiful Person ever? They even pay money for that privilege.
ENOUGH with the b.s. ‘apologies’!
An apology must accompany – and embrace – consequence.
This restaurant should feed the officers ejected for free for the next year.
Consequences, not apologies.
Is it wise for any SFPD cop to eat anything served by this place?
If I were a cop, I wouldn’t eat there, hell I am not a cop, and I still would not eat there.
It’s a safe offer to make, given that PD ethics rules make it impossible to accept.
I wonder if they apologized because they realized that in SF they have the possibility of becoming a target of miscreants, and someone let them know “You know, the police don’t have to respond to any calls you make… at least not quickly.”
It would be easy to make them a target.
The Chief’s response should have been, “We respect your wish not to have uniformed or armed officers on your premises, so we’ve made a note not to respond to any call from your address; would you like us to include your home addresses in that too?”
Heh.™
But I believe that would be illegal. However, I suppose the Chief could publicly ask them if they wanted the police to not respond to reports of robberies.
My email to the NYC Pride organization, sent in June. Self explanatory.
——
I write as a gay man with miles on the tires. I am not in law enforcement, but have two gay friends who are. One is a jail guard in our rural county. His orientation is known in the department, including by the very conservative sheriff who has never discriminated. In fact, that same sheriff made accommodations for a transgendered inmate.
I am very disappointed that you are banning LGBT police from your events. From your pictures online, you appear to be pretty young. You clearly do not comprehend how much effort has gone into improving relations with the police.
It pains me enormously to write this, but I will never attend any Pride event that excludes LGBT police. Your stance is incredibly short-sighted to the point of obliviousness toward the many unsung heroes who have done so much. I am truly baffled that a) you presume to speak for all of us, and b) that you want to destroy those relationships.
I suspect what happened is a member of their staff came to one of them and said something approximating “the sight of a police officer makes me feel unsafe”. Rather than think through the issue the impulsive reaction was to ask the officers to leave. After the blowback it appears it occurred to them that maybe the feelings of a 20 something employee shouldn’t be the deciding factor as to their policy in regards to public safety.
This is one of those “can’t they both lose” situations.
Who do you think has been enforcing the ever-more-ridiculous COVID shutdown orders in SF? The police are not your friends.
The police merely reflect who is in power. When you elect crazy people like Di Blasio, Lightfoot and Garcetti, or man-children like Obama, the police become very scary.
The police CHIEF merely reflects who is in power (in most cases) as the Chief is a politician but most cops are not.
BTW, it will be interesting to watch the process and result for finding a new Chief in Minneapolis (and other leftist cities). Will he/she be a politician? Would an intelligent person work for a leftist city run by leftist politicians?
I would like to see some documentation of this claim. You assume that police officers — the ones on the street, at the point of the spear — just follow the orders of some political operative, which may include ranks of Lt and above, without feeling it is a good idea. My statement is based on 25 years (half my life at the time) in the blue suit in the SF neighborhood, a half of that as a supervisor. Talk about “herding cats” , that’s is easy compared to cops. Cops are thinking individuals, unlike many of the people they pledge to protect.
It wasn’t apparent in Minneapolis, Portland, Charlottesville, NYC, New Orleans, or Washington DC. What are the next three terms in this series: happenstance, coincidence, conspiracy…?
I agree. You can add Portland, Seattle, Konesha, and any other city where the police stood by and watched Antifa / BLM loot, riot, and burn down buildings. They did nothing.
Amateur is definitely an amateur- just find a video online, there’s your proof.
I agree. Cops need to be intelligent and independent as they must operate alone in most cases. These are people who are the hardest to manage/control from the outside so they MUST also have a moral compass (not all do – the bad cops). They can and do often undermine bad directives from above. What we hear reported does not necessarily reflect reality.
After our recent periods of rioting and taking the BLM knee…I’m not so sure. I bet the Australians would have bet their cops wouldn’t be chasing them down and shooting them with rubber bullets. Or knocking down older women and pepper spraying their face for a long period of time while the women writhe on the ground.
After the police went door to door and confiscated weapons in N.O. after Katrina, my faith in the goodness of police was totally shattered. Go watch that video of cops body tackling a geriatric woman and stealing all her weapons and tell me how cops think for themselves and follow the constitution. Go watch the new videos of cops beating that poor woman on Jan. 6 and tell me how they are the good guys.
You are probably a good guy. All over the world there has been a near unanimous decision by police to enforce draconian policies and to use sometimes brutal force to do so. All while they stood down and watched cities burn for BLM.
Pretending to feel uncomfortable gets you woke points.
IMO, this sorry ristorante can have this….PPPFFFFFFTTT ! I hope some of the street urchins visit this SHITE OL’ CONSTANLY, W/CHATOS”.
I don’t see the problem. These people have the right to run their business as they please, and the rest of us have the right to spend our money elsewhere. The cops aren’t going to go hungry, and the restaurant won’t be polluted with any of that dirty blue money — everyone wins.
I suppose they have the right to be idiots. And now they can face the consquences of their idiocy.