Kenosha restaurateur says sorry for role in domestic violence ‘joke’
Victor Stoian says he’s sorry and admits his part in mocking a victim of domestic violence along with his employees and the man who hurt her. Many feel his June 26th Facebook apology only reflects his sorrow that his businesses are getting heat for it.
Last weekend, a Facebook post from a Kenosha woman began making waves locally. It detailed a horrific scene from August of 2014, starting at Fec’s Bar on 6th Avenue. The woman and her then-boyfriend, Nick Mercier, had been spending an otherwise fun evening at the local hangout, but things devolved when an alcohol-fueled argument escalated. According to court documents obtained by The Snowglobe from sources close to the woman, the man took off in his yellow Jeep leaving his girlfriend stranded and alone to pay their bill. She settled the tab, called him, and he circled back around the block, taunting her. When he finally came back for her, she began to climb into the vehicle. While she only had one leg in the door, he slammed his foot on the gas and pealed out into the street. The woman was ejected by the force of momentum out of the vehicle and onto the ground, where the man drove one of the Jeep tires over her ankle. Bystanders rushed to help her. When they helped her sit up, blood gushed down her back from a head wound she’d suffered against the curb.
A series of events ensued. The woman, thankfully, ended the relationship. Mercier was arrested, charged, and eventually sentenced. The victim needed time to recover from a fairly severe concussion and other injuries, which prompted her to lose her job at Uline as she didn’t yet qualify for short term disability. But some of the worst re-victimization was about to occur.
How It Involves The Grease & Honey Restaurant Family
The man, it turns out, worked as a manager for a popular Kenosha restaurant on 30th Avenue and 60th Street, The Garage. It’s one of three locations operating under the “Grease & Honey Restaurant Family” umbrella. The others are Sazzy B and The Buzz, adjacent to each other on Downtown’s 6th Avenue. These restaurants are owned by entrepreneurs Victor Stoian and Paul Campagna, who have more ventures planned and underway for the downtown area in the coming years. Riki Tagliapietra is listed as Director of Operations for the Grease & Honey network of businesses.
The troublesome pattern of “jokes” began when Mercier and other employees at the Garage Location used the menu slate where weekly specials are listed to create some “artwork” mocking the 2014 Jeep incident. More instances of the board being used to make fun of the victim were displayed in the woman’s Facebook post, which has since been closed to the public. These attempts to belittle the victim were made on company premises, with company materials, and presumably on company time.
Additionally, a Grease & Honey employee-outing to a baseball game resulted in a new garish “joke” being staged about the incident. A man posed at the wheel of a yellow bus (an apparent nod to the yellow Jeep) with young women posed on the ground and on the hood as “victims.” That man has been identified as Nick Mercier.
Another local business owner, John Ziemba of JohnnyZ PourHouse, made that image his profile picture on Facebook.
It was in response to that when Stoian suggested that “We should all change our profile picture to this!!!” His comment was met with laughter emojis and jovial commentary by Mercier, Ziemba, and others.
This paints a picture of a group of restaurants housing a culture that somehow does worse than turn a blind eye to domestic violence, but actually assists its favored fuccbois in laughing off grave matters when they’ve traumatized women. The photo with the young women staged around the bus also suggests that some of them learn how to partake in this toxically misogynist game in order to remain in favor themselves. Of course, the underlying time bomb is the message subtly embedded in those young women’s minds; when push comes to shove with the men in this circle, “Behave, be compliant, or the person we’re mocking next will be you.” No one has to overtly say it. They’ve all made an example and a social pariah of the last woman to go up against one of their golden boys, even though she was the one victimized by him.
The impression many outsiders have gotten from this debacle is that something very wrong is going on inside the culture of this restaurant group. Who is to blame for such internal dysfunction? How is it being allowed to thrive?
How The Public Is Stepping In To Apply Consequences
Having any modicum of empathy for Mercier’s victim causes us to imagine how it would feel to have one’s life-altering injuries and betrayal of trust by a loved one ridiculed and turned into a running joke. This twisted social game, reported back to her through the grapevine, likely heightened her sense of isolation. One can reasonably assume it created anxiety in going about a city that is just as much hers as it is Mercier’s and seeing circles of friends that probably have some overlap. It would be difficult to figure out who one’s real friends were and who might be partaking in the laughter behind one’s back. This type of re-victimization compounds the trauma and the trust issues created by the initial injury itself.
A diffuse but large group of Kenosha citizens took notice of the posts circulating on Facebook about this victim and these jokes, and quickly spread the word. What many of these people have in common is that they have survived domestic violence or sexual assault themselves or are very invested in eradicating these social ills and the toxic cultures that allow them to flourish.
It seems that what these jokesters failed to realize as they perpetrated the series of mockeries is that the harbingers of social change they read about nationally apply to Kenosha, too. The #MeToo movement, wherein fed up women are no longer letting terrible male behavior slide, is everywhere. Yes. Even here. If you fail repeatedly to regulate yourselves, and if you victimize women with the notion that you have immunity, there is a contingent of active, committed citizens—men and women alike—who are more than happy to show you how wrong you are. There are consequences in society now for being actively bad for women, whether you say you intended to be or not.
This lesson seemed to come as a surprise to the ownership and management team for The Garage, Sazzy B, and The Buzz, even though it’s not the first time they’ve come under fire for situations that look bad for women’s wellbeing in their employment.* Stoian’s apology came approximately three days after the social media shaming of him started. Dana Boyle LaPointe, a local woman who engaged in conversation on this and consented to it being shared, observed that his mea culpa is the type that puts the victim in the terrible position of feeling pressured to accept it, because she is “causing” him all of this backlash and now he’s responded to it. A better way to apologize in this case might have been to privately send his written apology to her with the caveat that she is under no pressure to absolve him of his responsibility, and to note that she is free to publicize his apology if she chooses. As it is, it seems as if he wrote his apology to a very limited audience; his Facebook friends — mostly people who presumably already kiss his ass and are on his side, if the reactions to his post are any indication. His apology seems to be self-serving in that capacity, rather than intended out of a place of generosity toward someone he helped traumatize.
Ultimately, we must remember that entrepreneurs are usually big fans of the free market. They live and die by it, and wear the risk like a badge of honor. Well, fellas, #MeToo is part of the free market, whether you like that or not. You could act like women don’t count as part of this economic concept, and that they are just being feminist zealot snowflakes and act as if it’s totally unfair that they vocally don’t want to patronize your businesses in light of all of this. Or maybe you could take a page out of Starbucks’ book and close your locations for a day of workshops about toxic masculinity in the workplace (and continue forward with new practices to weed out nasty employees). One way or another, something has got to change. If someone won’t step up to right that ship, I suspect this won’t be the last story to come from this set of restaurants, and that the public backlash will get worse from here. In the meantime, there are plenty of great restaurants in Kenosha to eat at which treat women with respect whether they’re employees or citizens. I’ll be grabbing a bite there.
Editor’s Notes:
- In 2017, an anecdotal report of sexual assault by a manager of The Buzz surfaced on social media. Since no criminal charges were filed at that time, it was up to management to decide how to respond. This was the response at that time (the link has been made unavailable to the public but screenshots of what it contains are included below these notes). This Snowglobe author was sought as a special advisor on this issue, pro-bono, and her primary advice was not implemented (at least not right away).
- The author of this piece was at one time a tenant of Victor Stoian’s, rather uneventfully, and no legal or personal grievances have ever existed between the parties.
