Local businesses, Santa Rosa Junior College vandalized with ‘straight pride’ flyers pasted over LGBTQ+ art

Flyers promoting anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda were found Monday pasted on several businesses in downtown Santa Rosa, including Brew Coffee and Beer House, a queer-owned coffeehouse.

Brew employees posted photos on social media showing the flyers, which were posted on the coffee shop’s windows, walls, and doors at its location on Healdsburg Avenue. The flyers covered existing art and messaging that supports the LGBTQ+ community, as well as Black, Indigenous, People of Color communities.

The flyers touted “Happy Proud Month” and contained a QR code that led to a YouTube video lauding “straight pride,” a backlash tactic in response to the increased visibility of the LGBTQ+ community.

It also included a website URL for a group known as Redwood Holler, which indicates its goal is “supporting the local communities and making our state great again one helping hand at a time.”

An email address and YouTube channel included on the website is affiliated with the Bay Area Proud Boys, a local chapter of the far-right, extremist organization that emerged nationwide in 2016.

Brew co-owner Alisse Cottle said the business regularly gets tagged or vandalized, but nothing in the past had directly promoted anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

“This is a hate crime and we wanted to blast it to raise awareness,” the post on Brew’s official Instagram page stated Monday. “We face hate like this all year long and it is why it's important that Pride month happens and why we must stand together everyday to protect each other.”

“It’s important Sonoma County knows there are folks out there spreading hate,” Cottle said in an interview with The Press Democrat. “I just like to raise awareness of who we are.”

The same flyers were also found Monday at Santa Rosa Junior College, primarily on the east side of the Mendocino Avenue campus.

Chief Robert Brownlee, with the campus’ police department, said Santa Rosa staff arrived to work to find the flyers. They were not found at the Petaluma campus.

Brownlee and Robert Ethington, the college’s interim vice president, said the flyers were removed before classes started Monday morning.

Campus police have opened an investigation and will be working with Santa Rosa police, Brownlee said.

“If anybody comes across (these flyers) or have information, please work with us and give us a call so that we can hold these folks accountable,” he said.

Other businesses around Santa Rosa were also tagged with these flyers such as True Till Death Tattoo, Shady Oak Barrel House and The Astro motel.

Shady Oak Barrel House owner Steve Doty told The Press Democrat Monday evening his business was closed for the day. As a result, the flyers left there weren’t discovered until around 1 p.m.

They were “posted the entire length of our building” on windows, the front door and cinder block exterior, Doty said. They also were on a utility box, light poles and a nearby donation center.

Doty called the signs “hateful, disgusting and in direct opposition to the ideals of Shady Oak as a business and Santa Rosa as a community.”

Rochelle Orozco, operations manager for The Astro, said Monday that four men were captured by the motel’s surveillance cameras as they posted the flyers overnight. The footage shows the men arriving around midnight and follows them as they plaster four of the flyers on the property.

Santa Rosa police Lt. Chris Mahurin, a department spokesperson, said police officers are documenting where the flyers have been found in hopes of locating who is responsible.

Officers assigned to patrol downtown will also perform additional patrols near queer-owned businesses or businesses that support the LGBTQ+ community, he added.

Staff Writer Colin Atagi contributed to this report.

You can reach Staff Writer Sara Edwards at 707-521-5487 or sara.edwards@pressdemocrat. com. On Twitter @sedwards380.