News (USA)

Whiney restaurant owner stops serving Bud Light because of Dylan Mulvaney partnership

Restaurant owner Joe Penovich speaking on Fox Business
Restaurant owner Joe Penovich speaking on Fox Business Photo: Screenshot

The right wing’s weeks-long outrage over Bud Light’s partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney is still burning bright. As conservatives across the country commit to never drinking Bud Light again, one Florida restaurant owner has decided to completely ban the beverage (and anything from Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch) from his establishments.

Joe Penovich, owner of the Grills Seafood Deck and Tiki Bar, recently posted a statement on Facebook saying he made the decision to eliminate Bud Light from his restaurants “because of their support of something that is in direct opposition to our Biblical faith.”

At the beginning of the month, Mulvaney posted a sponsored video to Instagram where she received custom Bud Light beer cans with her face on them. Because of the LGBTQ+ marketing, conservatives lost their minds for the following weeks, shooting up Bud Light cans with assault rifles, posting sad videos dumping the beer out, and promising a boycott.

Penovich claimed he and other Christians do not hate Mulvaney but also said that “transgenderism is a social experiment causing irreversible damage to a growing population of younger and younger children.”

Penovich’s post was in response to a customer who claimed on social media that a restaurant manager called Bud Light “f***ot beer” while instructing the staff to throw out their supply.

In his post, Penovich vehemently denied the allegations and declared it as “an attempt to defame our character.”

He said it is “not remotely characteristic of who we are” and then went on to attack transgender people’s identities.

A few days later, Penovich publicized a letter he wrote to Anheuser-Busch that said he was “disgusted” by their decision to partner with Mulvaney and that they “are the one causing this division and anger in our society.”

“You are responsible for making some of the gay community think Grills does not welcome them. And you knew EXACTLY what you were doing when you launched this campaign. How could you not? ‘Good ole boy beer…meets Dylan Mulvaney? Hmm. Let’s see what that does to the country.’ NOBODY is that stupid. This goes way beyond transgenderism. This wasn’t a marketing mistake. Your corporation knew the fire storm they would ignite in this country but chose to do it anyway. I pray all our eyes are opened as to why.”

Yet in the same letter, he wrote that “we do love” gay and trans people and that “there is no judgment in my heart towards you.”

Penovich’s crusade did not end there. He also appeared on Fox Business, where he claimed it had been “the most difficult two weeks we have ever experienced” because Anheuser-Busch “held a social knife over all of our heads here, and they dropped it very irresponsibly.”

He called his challenges stemming from the hate he spewed at marginalized people “Hell on earth.”

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