NORFOLK, Va. — A brewery embroiled in controversy lost the support of another civic league in Norfolk Monday night.
In September, the Park Place Civic League recommended the denial of Armed Forces Brewing Company's pending conditional use permits.
Now, the Colonial Place and Riverview Civic League followed suit, voting 48-2 to support the Park Place Civic League's stance. In each of their votes, they cited poor community relationships, insinuations of violence and threats and anti-LGBTQ values, among other things.
Back in July, Armed Forces Brewing Company announced Norfolk would be home to their headquarters and inaugural brewing facility. The company has promised that 70% of its workforce will be made up of military veterans.
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They’re currently brewing beer under the grandfathered conditional use permit for the former O’Connor’s brewing location while waiting for three new permits to be approved.
A shareholder for the company and veteran, Robert J. O’Neill, has attracted controversy for his anti-LGBTQ rhetoric online, including calling members of the LGBTQ community "pedophiles." He has also stated on social media that "China is going to destroy us" because the U.S. Navy featured a servicemember and drag queen in a recruitment video.
This is something that doesn’t sit well with openly gay Colonial Place resident John Fox.
"I don’t think Norfolk is the place for a business that promotes weapons, misogynistic, racial, homophobic and transphobic views," he said during Monday's meeting.
"This person's takes are political in nature, they are for money and profit," said 80/20 Burger Bar owner, Jamie Summ. "Norfolk has become, and this neighborhood especially, a neighborhood that supports our gay community."
He said he doesn't want to see that movement slide backward.
"Google Rob O'Neill. Look at his name. He will tell you what he thinks about certain people and he will tell you how much he wants to hurt certain people and how certain people shouldn't exist. That's fine until you want to own a business, especially when you say you want to be open for anyone, when you know damn well you would prefer rather if there was a possibility to not have certain people in there."
However, not everyone agreed.
"Why are your feelings more important than somebody else's? If you don't want to go to that business, don't go to that business," said one civic league member.
Another echoed, "We may have differences of opinion, but we can't be seen as so intolerant that if you disagree with somebody, you want to shut down and prevent them from coming here."
Armed Forces CEO Alan Beal was scheduled to attend the meeting to hold a Q&A with the residents. However, Civic League President Pooya Mohit said Beal's office canceled at the last minute because they knew a news outlet would be attending.
13News Now reached out to a spokesperson for the business ahead of the meeting for a comment but did not receive a response. 13News Now was also the only outlet in attendance at this particular meeting.
"They were contacted by the press just moments before coming to the meeting and the press reached out to them and said that they understand that they are going to be at their meeting and that we were going to be voting on them and they have declined to come to the meeting now because of that," he said.
Board member Stephanie Clark went on to say she won’t support the business as a veteran or as an LGBTQ ally. She also read an email from an Armed Forces publicist regarding the previous Park Place Civic League vote.
"The publicist for Armed Forces Brewing Company actually said the civic league presented incorrect information to their members which radically misrepresented the organization," said Clark.
She went on the read a statement she said was from O'Neill regarding that same vote.
"Their infamous owner, who up until recently was the face of the company, said about the civic league that it is "a group of people that sit around and are in charge of civics, but I don't think they know what the definition of 'civic' is, per se. They gave us a non-recommendation letter because they don't like us. They don't like our values, and our values allegedly. I think they are kind of dumb.'"
Another civic league member in the crowd said as a Navy veteran, he's not pleased with how they are marketing to veterans.
"Any business that tries to use some kind of military clout or use the military or DOD as justification to push their views or to try to sell goods and prey upon military is very disgusting. Military service is about being humble, it's about serving your country," he said.
These civic league votes won’t directly prevent Armed Forces Brewing’s applications for conditional use permits, though they do hold merit with the city’s Planning Commission, which will decide for or against recommending approval to the Norfolk City Council.
The commission is meeting on Nov. 16 at 2:30 p.m. at Norfolk City Hall to consider the permits.
We reached out to Armed Forces Brewing Company for comment, but they did not email us back nor did they attend that meeting as we said above.