A gay couple ran a rural restaurant in peace. Then new neighbors arrived.
Why do people behave this way? This is a sad and frustrating story where the "bad guys" win.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/interactive/2023/front-porch-restaurant-virginia-dispute/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001
A gay couple ran a rural restaurant in peace. Then new neighbors arrived.
As soon as she spotted the lifeless vermin, Tiffany Foster had a hunch about how it appeared near the trash bins behind the Front Porch Market and Grill in The Plains, Va. The general manager went inside, pulled out her phone and reviewed security-camera footage. Her suspicion was confirmed: The dead rat had been tossed onto the property.
The suspect? Mike Washer. The businessman and his wife, Melissa, first complained to the Front Porch proprietors about pre-dawn vendor deliveries in 2019, not long after the conservative Christian couple moved their financial firm right next door to the restaurant, which flies a gay Pride flag. The renovated building doubles as the Washers’ residence, where they have a front-row view of the Front Porch’s operation.
By the time the rat appeared last summer, the relationship between the two businesses had devolved. A year earlier, the Washers had started filing complaints about their neighbor’s trash with the health department. Fed up with what they viewed as harassment, the Front Porch owners filed a no-trespassing order against their neighbors. The Washers responded by installing signs to prevent diners from parking in spaces the Washers own in the shared lot. They confronted or towed drivers who ignored the signs. Their attorney threatened legal action against the restaurant’s suppliers if their trucks continued to “trespass” in the lot. The same attorney wrote a town official, challenging the restaurant’s right to operate under its existing permit.
Still, when she spotted the rat last August, Foster was not prepared for what she saw on the video: Mike Washer flipping the rodent onto the Front Porch’s property and taking photos of it, in what she assumed was a staged effort to flag health officials about an infestation. Foster remembers thinking, “I cannot believe that someone would stoop so low to try to put someone out of business.”
(There's more... much more.)
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