Days before the 2016 election, when the Long Island town first ordered an ice cream shop to take down a sign expressing support for Donald Trump, the owners of Roger’s Frigate grudgingly complied.
But now President Trump has been impeached, the Senate is sparring over his trial, and the confectionery in Port Jefferson, N.Y., refuses to budge. So what if it’s a code violation? The banner outside Roger’s Frigate will stay up — even if the shop ends up having to fight a fine of $2,000 a day.
“We are being specifically targeted for supporting our president, when we’re only trying to express our love of country,” said Roger Rutherford, the store’s general manager.
In a phone interview with The Washington Post, he said local officials violated freedom of speech by ordering the cavernous, pink-and-white shop to take down the banner earlier this week. (Store owner George Wallis authorized Rutherford to speak on his behalf.)
But Margot Garant, the village’s mayor, said the government’s notice is a purely apolitical one. Port Jefferson has strict sign codes, she said, and Wallis should know better as president of the town’s business improvement district. (Garant is a registered Republican, according to public records, although her post is officially nonpartisan.)
“It’s not about whether you support the president or not. It’s about having a uniform look,” she told WABC this week. “We’re a beautiful village, and that’s the purpose of the code.”
Still, the sign is nothing if not visible. The ice cream shop occupies a two-story building right across from the docks where ferries come and go from Bridgeport, Conn. As passengers set foot on shore, the banner is there to greet them, affixed to the store’s second-story balcony.
And as with anything bearing the president’s name these days, even an oversize piece of vinyl outside an ice cream shop is bound to stir up a debate.
As the Senate voted to approve rules for the president’s impeachment trial on Jan. 21, Wallis hung up the banner as a sign of loyalty to Trump. Almost immediately, Rutherford said, customers stopped by to take photos of the sign and offer their support, he said. Others called to thank Roger’s Frigate for remaining loyal to the president.
But emails also started pouring in to Garant’s office that called the sign “highly offensive."
“We all may not [have] the same political views,” one man wrote in an email to the mayor, which Rutherford provided to The Post, “but we should show respect especially in a business district.”
Port Jefferson, which is about 50 miles east of New York, narrowly voted for Hillary Clinton. Wallis lives in nearby Saint James, which went for Trump.
The banner “makes you look like a village of idiots,” a woman wrote in another email. She added that the shop’s owner is “determined to undermine the Village of Port Jefferson to impress his buddy Lee Zeldin,” the area’s Republican congressman and a noted Trump ally.
On Sunday, local officials sent Roger’s Frigate a formal notice, informing the ice cream shop that it had to take down the Trump sign or pay up.
The banner was too large for the shop’s building, Brian Egan, a lawyer for Port Jefferson’s government, told Newsday, and Wallis never got a permit. Because he had previously violated the village code with his other Trump signs, he could face maximum penalties.
“We’re not opposed to the First Amendment,” Egan said. “We’re in favor of it.”
But Rutherford said that the town is going after the ice cream shop in particular and that other businesses in Port Jefferson have put up similarly sized signs without any repercussions. Even the village government itself is guilty of violating its own code, he said.
“There are two different standards here,” he said. “One for Mr. Wallis and the president, and one for everyone else.”
Wallis has previously butted heads with local government about his property. In 2002, he took down an eight-foot-tall statue of Thomas Jefferson, then considered a town landmark, and replaced it with a gold and bronze eagle nearly twice that height in honor of 9/11 victims. Despite complaints from the mayor, the eagle is still there.
Rutherford said that the “In Trump We Trust” banner will come down once the impeachment proceedings are over. But until then, the store is prepared to go to court, if necessary, to keep its symbol of patriotism up until Trump is acquitted.
“We hope the impeachment trial will be over soon,” Rutherford said, “so that we can take the banner down and all go along our merry way.”
Only for so long, though.
“We’ll see what happens later in 2020,” he added.
