A Burlington restaurant owner has come under fire after he posted on Facebook that “junkies should detox or die,” leading to a flurry of calls to boycott his business.
Magnolia Bistro owner Shannon Reilly wrote the inflammatory comment on Friday in response to a post by Mayor Miro Weinberger, who shared a Seven Days article about the city’s efforts to more quickly provide buprenorphine to drug users seeking treatment. Buprenorphine, also referred to as bupe or its commercial name, Suboxone, is an opioid that mitigates heroin withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
“The junkies should detox or die,” Reilly wrote. “Sorry. So fuckin pathetic employing people spaced out on bupe. Fuckin useless. Let them die.”
Reilly also took a shot at Weinberger: “F U Wondeboy. Stop trying to act like you are doing anything good for this town! You deserved to be buried under that mall you douchbag,” he wrote, apparently referring to the redevelopment of the Burlington Town Center, which has been rechristened CityPlace Burlington.
The comments came to light after Scott Pavek, a Burlington resident who advocates for safe injection sites and opiate treatment, took a screenshot of Reilly’s comment and then posted it Friday on Twitter .
“This comment from the owner of Magnolia Bistro shows what we are up against. A lot of stigma to address here in #btv,” Pavek wrote.
Others on Twitter called for a boycott. “@MagnoliaVT followers please: 1. Unfollow 2. Boycott 3. Retweet,” wrote Tom Dalton, who advocated for the buprenorphine program and is director of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform.
“When the owner doesn’t back the values, morals, and human decency that I expect of those around me and in my community I’ll take my business elsewhere every time,” one Facebook user wrote in a review on Magnolia’s page the day after Reilly’s post.
Reilly said he opposes Weinberger’s decision to provide buprenorphine, but in response, “said the totally wrong thing.”
The outrage could wreak havoc on his business, he acknowledged, which is just now “starting to gain traction.” Reilly, who opened the restaurant in 2006, said he’s considering hiring a public relations consultant to help respond appropriately to the outrage. By Monday afternoon, Reilly had not publicly addressed the comments.
“I feel like an apology is in order,” he told Seven Days. Reilly added that he doesn’t want to draw attention to the original comment and wants to find an appropriate venue to respond: “I don’t know the best way to go about it.”
As for Pavek? He took his business elsewhere: “Breakfast at Mirabelle’s this morning was excellent,” he wrote on Saturday, referring to the Main Street café.
In a written message to Seven Days on Monday, Pavek said he wants “to bring attention to stigmatization of substance use disorder and educate others.”
“Dialogue would be an an accomplishment. Bringing attention to the issue in itself,” he said. “Maybe Magnolia will decide to host a benefit for Safe Recovery. I want some good to come of this.”
Writing the wrong thing on social media can quickly lead to unintended consequences. Burlington Free Press editor Denis Finley was fired in January after he suggested in a tweet that recognizing a third gender on Vermont driver’s licenses “makes us one step closer to the apocalypse.”
Reilly hopes to staunch the damage. “I generally leave a trail of goodness wherever I go,” he said, adding that he’d learned his lesson: “The worst situations [create] the largest opportunities for growth.”
It’s not the only controversy in which Reilly is embroiled. He recently reignited an ongoing feud with the Burlington Farmers Market, which sets up each summer Saturday at City Hall Park, across the street from Magnolia’s location at 1 Lawson Lane.
Market executive director Chris Wagner ordered several $25 Magnolia gift certificates he planned to put in baskets to raffle off at the weekly event. Reilly, though, sent Wagner a customized batch with a set of “Fun Facts” on the back: “The location of the Farmers market is hurting local businesses and the parks ecology,” Reilly wrote. “Farmers market management has been unresponsive to its neighbors concerns.”
“It’s not fair for you to close down streets, take over parking and then undercut merchants in front of their brick-and-mortar businesses that are paying high rent all week long,” Reilly said, adding that he loses 100 customers and $2,000 each Saturday when the market is open. “The farmers market has completely ignored the small businesses around them.”
When Wagner saw what Reilly had written, he instead mailed the certificates to area businesses and “friends of market” who “appreciate the draw that the market has.” Wagner also included a letter explaining the unconventional certificates and affirming the market’s commitment to working with neighboring business owners. Wagner sent one of the letters and a gift certificate to Seven Days’ advertising department.
The snarky certificates didn’t sit well with members of Keep the Park Green, either. Monique Fordham, one of the group’s leaders, sent Reilly an email about them last Friday.
“Keep The Park Green was not consulted before you issued these Magnolia ‘joke’ gift certificates with our name on it and regardless of any good intentions you may have had, that was improper and possibly harmful to our cause,” Fordham wrote. “KTPG has been working so hard to protect the trees, and while we want to encourage everyone who cares about them to speak up, it’s not appropriate for you to put our name and Facebook page on these certificates —that are designed to highlight the problems of businesses surrounding the Farmers Market — without checking with us first.”
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This article appears in Jun 13-19, 2018.
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when will people learn what to post on social media, this guy is a complete loser
Reilly is a troubled person and I hope he seeks out therapy or some other form of self-help and turns his life around. I worked for him for a few months – and I have a thick skin – but his repeated verbal abuse of his employees was incredibly frightening and ultimately – unsurprisingly – lead to the highest turnover I’ve ever seen or heard of in any small business in the state. I hope this will finally force him to come to terms with his troubling behavior and seek out some help.
“I feel like an apology is in order,” he told Seven Days [and then proceeded not to make one].
“Fuckin [sic] useless. Let them die”.
Kudos to Magnolia Bistro owner Shannon Reilly for having the personal integrity to take the high ground and promote his “Deathward Ho” vision for addressing Burlingtons opioid addiction crisis on social media under his own name and the name of his business.
Contrast Mr. Reillys Trump Era ownership of the issue, albeit a tad warped, with the spineless approach to ridding Church Street of self-perceived undesireables that civic-minded restaurateurs Tim Halverson (owner of Halversons Upstreet Caf and E.B. Strongs Prime Steakhouse) and Dennis Morrisseau (original owner of Leunigs Old World Cafe) promulgated in the late 1980s.
Three decades ago, Halverson, Morrisseau and Morrisseaus wife actually formed a non-profit – “Westward Ho” and used intermediaries in their attempt to carry out their vision of societal cleansing , in order to distance their repugnant beliefs from their personal reputations, so that the good names of their lucrative dining enterprises would remain unsullied.
A chickenshit, liberal approach that Magnolia Bistro owner Shannon Reilly would have found “fuckin useless”.
Shannon,
Let’s give more people a chance to recover. Instead of hiring a PR firm, how about we arrange a benefit for Safe Recovery, the syringe exchange facility in Burlington? The Safe Recovery team does great work and needs help. I am sure we can come to an arrangement that benefits the community. Let’s make something of this incident. Contact me if you’re interested.
Wait, this place is still open?
What an absolute disappointment. I’m really at a loss for words which doesn’t happen often. Reading this really hit my core beliefs and made me realize even more that there are people in this world who are still unprofessional, bigots, and plain cruel. Bye bye Magnolia, my business will be elsewhere.
Solution: Don’t do the drug in the first place. Simple. I, for one, am sick of all the attention and money paid to these people. I don’t want my tax dollars to fund their rehab or see a rise in my health insurance because they are paying for these people. The wacky libs just provide them with an excuse. There is no excuse. They do it because they WANT to do it.
“He also maintained he was singled out as a business owner and subjected to a “digital lynch mob.”
You brought this on yourself by providing the rope for the lynch mob!
Reilly is totally wrong about the junkies . . but pretty spot on about the mayor.
What Ashmoorevt said. This comment, “I generally leave a trail of goodness wherever I go,” shows the owners supreme lack of self-awareness. My daughter worked there a very short while, quitting because of his constant verbal abuse and poor management. She was one of many. I quit going there years ago.
I worked for the guy and let me tell you this is completely indicative of his personality. I quit because of his lack of professionalism and verbal abuse to his employees. No one deserves to have their bike helmet thrown at them in the middle of the restaurant during service and being told to get out, you fat b**** for no reason other than that he had just gotten into a screaming fight with his ex wife on the back patio (that everyone in the restaurant could hear). This didnt happen to me, but to another server. I could go on and on…
The turnover rate was SO high there because of his abuse of power. To really hammer down the point, he calls me TWO YEARS after I worked for him, asking if I could work a Sunday shift that he needed people for in a pinch. I wonder how many people turned him down to get that far back in his employee list.
Doesnt look like Burlington cares about their drug problem because youre making it easier for junkies!! Growing up first thing your parents teach you is not to do drugs and respect your elders and take care of mother nature!! Doesnt seem like anybody follow the simple rules anymore!!!! Wasting tax dollars on saving junkies with Narcan Day after day Some of these people three times a week or more while normal law abiding citizens are having medical issues and the police and ambulance already at another call because of an overdose Its sad to see people that go by the rules dying because of people that dont!!
Why hasnt the mayor done anything about the pollution going in the lake from the city of Burlington Almost 2,000,000 gallons of untreated human waste has gone in the lake Vermont lives on tourism!!! Maybe seven days should write articles about things that are very important like polluting our lake!!! Sorry if I offended anybody by my comments!!
I have a friend who is a recovering addict who was a waitress employed by him. I wonder what she would have to say if she knew he thought this way. Probably be a pretty amazing lawsuit she could bring up.
Never will you see me in that restaurant. Addiction is absolutely a huge problem and yes many addicts are troubled and do bad things but there are equally as many non addicts that are doing the same. It is time to find solutions not throw hatred and intolerance into an already huge problem, shame on Shannon Reilly for those comments, not in any way professional.