The owner of a bar in Idaho who posted a promotion online offering free beer to customers who helped ICE with their crackdown on documented migrants has said he has received death threats from members of the public.
“ALERT: Anyone who helps ICE identify and ultimately deport an illegal from Idaho gets FREE BEER FOR ONE MONTH at Old State Saloon!,” read the message posted by Mark Fitzpatrick, proprietor of the Old State Saloon in Eagle, which was posted on X (Twitter) on November 29.
Follow-up messages subsequently advertised a voicemail number and email address for patrons to phone in tips to and saw Fitzpatrick hit out at Facebook for taking down his offer from its platform.
The original post was ultimately seen by 8 million people on X after it was reposted by the Department of Homeland Security – but with the increased attention came threats against Fitzpatrick’s life and threats to burn his business down, he told Fox News Digital.
“At Old State Saloon, we really aren’t strangers to speaking out boldly about conservative Christian values and truth and putting the truth out there,” Fitzpatrick told Fox, adding that he was well aware that speaking up in a world of “deception” and “evil” was likely to cause people to get “really upset.”
“What liberals want to do is they attack you,” he said. “They go on attack and they start calling you names. People are just outright saying I should die for this. It’s really, really despicable.”
Fitzpatrick said that the abuse he had attracted was all online but that “if any of those liberals actually came in and were willing to talk,” they would find him to be someone who “would sit down with them and talk and listen to what they have to say.”
The Old State Saloon, which has previously held a “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” as a riposte to Pride and which carries a “Make America Great Again Signature Cocktail Menu,” is currently offering a number of other promotions related to the Trump administration’s illegal immigration raids.
On “Manly American Mondays,” men who say they support ICE can get a free beer while women prepared to “tattle” on migrants can get discount drinks on “Ladies’ ‘I’m Telling’ Tuesdays”.
There is also 10 percent off for heterosexual couples who show up for “Whistleblower Wednesdays.”
Fitzpatrick told Fox he believed the trolls his promotion has attracted were “kind of disclosing, like, their wickedness right to us in public and showing us who they are” and added that he had received “overwhelming support” from conservatives.
“At my saloon when I’m there after a long day of dealing with just wickedness and all the calls and everything else, people are there and they’re there just to come in and meet me and support me and encourage me,” he said.
Fitzpatrick admitted that the issue he believes he is drawing attention to is “not really about beers,” explaining: “I think the way it’s working is it’s drawing attention to the issue and conversations are happening.”
