LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. — A Florida bar is facing backlash after the owner displayed a controversial sign that referenced the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, reports said.
WPTV-TV says a sign at Harry's Banana Farm in Lake Worth Beach had a sign up that read "How do you miss a head that's that inflated?" less than 24 hours after Saturday's assassination attempt.
Soon after it was put up, the business received threats of violence, arson, calls to shut down and negative Yelp reviews, according to the news outlet.
On Tuesday, around 10 protestors were reported to be outside Harry's Banana Farm holding pro-Trump flags. One protestor said the business is known to have controversial signs.
"As Trump supporters, Americans we're not going to stand by that rhetoric," Jestin Nevarez told the outlet. "We don't want any violence any harm, I want to talk civilly with people, but some people can't and it's tough."
Another protestor told the news station that the Secret Service as been made aware of the bar's sign.
"You cannot put messages up there like that because there are people that are mentally ill in this country that will take it literally like 'OK, let me go shoot the president,'" Pam Fix said. "Places like this should be put out of business."
When WPTV-TV spoke with the bar's general manager, Lou De Stout, he said the sign was "free speech."
"To be honest with you, I (create) the sign and I try to make it timely, topical, humorous and do it [in] 10 words or less," De Stout said. "I go [with] whatever is the hot topic and as soon as that happened to Trump I knew that's all that everybody was going to be talking to for the next two weeks."
Due to the negative reaction, De Stout told the reporter his business profile was shut down.
"After a while, I thought ... I can't have my staff being threatened for the things that I do, it's not fair to them," he said to WPTV-TV. "Some of them are young girls. They have young kids, and it's a great staff here and I didn't want to put them in harm's way."
De Stout told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that the bar sign is meant to be "satirical" and is not trying to display any sort of political agenda.
“That’s what that bar’s about. It’s not political at all. Not in the least,” he told the outlet.
The bar has since reportedly replaced the original sign with one that reads, "Yeah, for Trump, so happy for him, you crazy bastards happy."