Around July 26th, the café was supposedly broken into, he got butthurt because people said he should call the cops. Unfortunately he has an annoying habit of nuking tweets like this so all that's left is the replies.
On August 15th, Banks claimed the café had been getting "trashed" every week. I was not able to locate any tweets referring to these alleged weeks of vandalism in the month prior, the only other mention would be the supposed break in.
"Police killed my father in law. So not exactly people I am going to call"
Around August 20th-21st people were leaving negative reviews in response to Banks spewing unsolicited political views onto social media.
Unfortunately he's deleted some of what he said, as evident by orphaned replies like this.
Banks "harmed the income of [his] French staff" by antagonizing people on Twitter by trying to virtue signal.
He wanted "payback" for the review from the woman that called him racist by "exposing her all over Montreal."
Full on ADF-style LARPing that "altright trolls" and "Soldiers of Odin" are planning café invasions at any moment. Again, unfortunately what they are replying to has been deleted.
It looks like the deleted tweet was him announcing his intent to close the café and then ebegging. "my twitter friend of many years was forced to close her lovely vegan cafe due to transphobic threats and damage to her property from the alt-right in her community. Please give if you can- she was committed to paying her staff a living wage and your support helps."
He used the drama he created to get on a CBC Breakaway radio show it seems.
On August 24th he said he was looking into selling the cafe and claiming the tweets from August 20th were why and blamed the "alt-right," he further claims there was "weekly vandalism" and "dead birds left at our door." Again, I saw no evidence of that on his Twitter.
They were planning to go to Nova Scotia next.
More ebegging and blaming the "alt-right," gullible people have given him over $4,000 so far.
A "fundraiser" is planned for September 22nd in addition to the ebegging.
Hi folks,
We have some things to announce and a few things to clear up.
As folks know, since we opened the cafe in Val-David just 2 months ago we have dealt with being broken into and robbed, vandalized almost weekly, dead birds left at our door several times, and all culminating in a barrage of hate-fuelled fake reviews and transphobic messages because the chef and one of the owners tweeted on her personal account that she was against Bill 21 in Quebec. It stated that Bill 21 was racist and that she was troubled to live in a province that would support and pass a law saying women who wear a hijab or turban can not teach children. This was picked up on by the alt-right and hate groups in Quebec, who then proceeded to target Sophia, the chef, and owner. These actions against her created a situation where we no longer felt safe with the cafe open, and with so many angry bigots knowing exactly where and when Sophia would be.
With that said we decided to close the cafe immediately. Safety is more important than a vegan cafe. Unfortunately, this decision does, however, put us out well over ten thousand dollars in debt, with staff that we need to compensate for the immediate loss of employment and relocation costs.
We have received a lot of support, thank you for the kind comments. Unfortunately, countering the kindness, we have also had comments of victim-blaming, people telling us we should toughen up, folks who naively think the police will ride in and make all this better. Nothing in our experience leads us to feel safe around the police or that they will protect us. If anything, this has been triggering and without getting into detail, some of us have experienced the reality of police violence and brutality and live with the trauma daily. We also feel this tremendous pressure to say Val-David is a great town, maybe it is. But the reality is that places like this elected a xenophobic government that empowers bigots and people filled with hate. This is why we are leaving -- we do not feel safe.
Now we are asking for help from our community. We have a fundraiser coming up in Montreal at Sala Rosa, on Sunday, Sept 22nd. We are also launching a crowd-funder to help us pay staff and recover some of the enormous amounts of money we have lost in all this. We are asking for help to move out of Quebec and resettle the business in Nova Scotia. We are asking for help for our small queer and trans run and owned business that we have sunk every penny we had into.
This is as personal as we feel comfortable addressing these matters as a business.
On a lighter note,
We are moving to Nova Scotia and will be relocating the business there. We will be focusing on our vegan cheese, doing farmers' markets, and a monthly vegan cheese box. Any help with getting us back on our feet and putting this mess behind us is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Sophia
The Vegan Canteen Team
He supposedly was offered a cabin on Salt Spring Island, on the other side of the continent, and may be going there instead of Nova Scotia.
The Nova Scotia move somehow "fell through"
He deleted whatever he said to this magazine
The town was trying to fine them for the font they were using when this "alt-right" super soldier threat magically showed up and made them skip town.
montrealgazette.com
