Doughnut shop hit with a molotov cocktail after drag-queen art show

 

Doughnut shop hit with a molotov cocktail after drag-queen art show

Around 2:30 a.m. Monday, Sarah Swain and Brian Hunter were jolted awake by a phone call from the fire department. The doughnut shop the couple owns in Tulsa had been targeted — again — just two weeks after they’d hosted an art exhibit featuring drag queens. Early that morning, a person in a dark hoodie, red cap and gloves was captured by a security camera quickly walking toward the Donut Hole with a baseball bat and a note in one hand and a bottle in the other. The assailant, who still hasn’t been apprehended by police, posted the note on the neighboring business’s door and then stood before the Barbie-pink facade of the doughnut shop. They took three thundering swings at the glass door until it shattered, then lit the bottle on fire and threw it inside.The damage from the molotov cocktail was minimal, the owners told The Washington Post. By Wednesday, the Donut Hole was back open, and its employees were ready to serve up hot cups of joe and the fresh doughnuts Swain decorates every day. But Swain said there’s an unnerving sense of shock that someone would take to violence over “something so small as having a ceramic doughnut exhibit with drag queen servers.” “We just want to make doughnuts,” Hunter said. “We’re just a small business. Like we’re just trying to make doughnuts and have fun. We don’t understand.” Drag exploded in popularity. Then came the protests and attacks. The Oct. 15 event had been filled “with overwhelming support, love and laughs,” Hunter said. That night, the doughnut shop transformed into “The Queens Dirty Dozens,” a concept envisioned by artist Daniel Gulick. A cartoon silhouette of Queen Elizabeth II decorated the shop. Instead of performing, drag queens dressed in their best 1950s housewife outfits served colorful ceramic doughnut sculptures. People lined up, down the block, hoping to enjoy the pop-up.But the morning after the event, Swain and Hunter returned to the shop to find pieces of shattered glass where the front door had once been. Someone had smashed it overnight, Hunter said — though the motive behind the vandalism isn’t clear. Source