Montauk Brewing Company Supports Black Lives Matter, Triggering Angry Backlash From Pro-Police Group

On June 3rd, in the midst of protests against racist police violence following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the founders of Long Island's Montauk Brewing Company wrote a message of support for the protests on a chalkboard outside of their Montauk tasting room. The message, which was then reposted on their Instagram account, stated that the company supported the Black Lives Matter cause "with all our hearts" and planned to donate to organizations supporting the movement. Two months went by without any fuss, but now the local beer purveyor has found itself the target of a boycott by a newly-formed pro-police Facebook group.

On August 12th, the Facebook group Defund Montauk Brewing Company was formed by Robert Frank, a Suffolk County police officer, and his wife Valeria Frank, a real estate agent. Its mission statement reads, "This group is to bring awareness Due [sic] The recent events that montauk brewing company has decided to take and make a poor decision by supporting an extemist [sic] organization."

You can see the brewery's chalkboard message in the photo below.

"I think he bought a 12 pack of their beer, someone made him aware of their stance as it relates to Black Lives Matter, and he was aggravated because he had to spill beer out—he wasn't going to drink it at this point," Michael O’Keefe, an author and retired detective who worked in the 83 Precinct in Bushwick, told Gothamist about the group's origins. O'Keefe, who is friends with the Franks, has become the spokesperson for the group because so many members are cops, "and a lot of them are active and it's a touchy situation to get involved with anyone media-wise."

People who want to join the private group have to answer yes or no to two questions: “Do you support extremist radical organizations?” and “Do you believe ALL LIVES MATTER?” In its first week of existence, the group amassed around 13,000 members; as of Tuesday, it had over 30,000 members.

Frank describes the members of the group as a "police-friendly community" with supporters from across the country. "We want to educate each other on who supports us and spend our money accordingly," he said. "It's all about boycotting companies dedicated to our destruction, which is what Black Lives Matter is."

Many of the posts in the group support his description, with an emphasis on denying the reality of systemic racism: "Fuck montauk brewing your [sic] supporting a hate group where only one race matters, what a stupid move and a racist move," wrote Robert Belviso. "ALL LIVES MATTER and also BLUE LIVES Matter."

"We are a country of 340+ million people, we won't all get along," said Chris Dyckman. "Yes there are biases. Yes there Are people who have problems with different races. There is absolutely no systemic racism in our country. We have gone out of our way to mend fences. There is no way you can support BLM (who calls for the murder of police officers) and also support the police."

"By saying they support Black Lives Matter with all their hearts, they said they support the violence and terrorism that the group represents," wrote Lynn Waldbauer Halverson. "Too late to go back now. Everything you do and say has a consequence. As a business, they should have taken a stand for what is good and right."

The boycott has extended to negative reviews on Yelp (enough that Yelp temporarily disabled posting to the Montauk Brewing page), comments on Montauk's various social media pages, and pieces in the NY Post.

In response, a Save The Montauk Brewing Company Facebook page has also popped up. Some local officials have spoken out in their defense: East Hampton Star reports that Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc, Councilmen David Lys and Jeff Bragman, and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby all issued statements of support for the company during a recent East Hampton Town Board meeting.

"This small, local company that's done a great job and does make a great product — and that's why they're doing well — has a right to express an opinion that they don't support racism," Bragman said. "At the same time, people that disagree do have a right to post things on Facebook and they even have a right to boycott if they want. I don't think that's appropriate, but they can do it."

For their part, Montauk's founders Vaughan Cutillo and Eric Moss seem completely confused by the extreme backlash. "I don't know how or why this came about," Cutillo told Patch. "As a company, our goals has always been to give people good vibes, no matter who they are. 'Come as you are,' has always been our message of inclusivity." He noted that after the chalkboard went up, they had made donations to non-for-profits including the NAACP and the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM).

The company had also created care packages for first responders, local police officers and fire departments during the early days of the pandemic. Moss's father is a retired East Hampton Town police officer. And as they wrote in a letter they posted to Instagram (see below), the company's "track record shows that we consistently donate to Police Precincts, Fire Fighters, the Navy Seal Foundation, Wounded Warrior Project, Coast Guard, Mt. Sinai Hospital, and more. We will never take a partisan stance, but we will always be empathetic towards the mistreatment of others."

"While our post received overwhelming support initially, recent responses made us realize we should clarify and affirm our intent," they said in their statement. "Our post was specifically in support of racial equality. We unequivocally, and unapologetically, stand against racism and violence in any capacity."

"With respect to them donating to other police groups, I don't care," O'Keefe told Gothamist. "You can't talk out of both sides of your mouth. If you support Black Lives Matter, [which] is in favor of the destruction of police departments and the murder of police officers, there's nothing you can do to ameliorate that fact. You can't have it both ways. Supporting police and Black Lives Matter are mutually exclusive of each other, at least if you want our money."

The Black Lives Matter movement has no official centralized leadership, and most protests since Floyd's murder have been non-violent, while a smaller number of demonstrations have been associated with looting, as well as violent crackdowns by police. As The Poynter Institute's PolitiFact notes, "there are also people who have participated in demonstrations, which have occurred in hundreds of cities, who may have no allegiance to Black Lives Matter, or may even oppose it, and have rioted or committed other acts of violence — making it even more difficult to determine how a violent incident occurred."

BLM activists have generally called for the redirection of police resources to social services and violence prevention programs, and an end to racist police brutality, among other demands. An analysis conducted by the Milwaukee Independent determined that 25 "active duty law enforcement officers have been shot and killed around the country so far this year. Six of those have occurred since the George Floyd protests began but none have been directly related to the protests."

As for Montauk Brewing Company, O'Keefe said, "They could make a very public apology and rescind their support for Black Lives Matter, and specifically support police groups, but to be perfectly honest, no one is going to trust them. They tried to walk back their statement in the first place and basically reiterated it. At this point, they're not to be believed. I don't know that anything could repair the rift."

The Montauk Brewing Company did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the boycott.