Comments posted on the Casino Wharf FX's Facebook page have drawn outrage throughout the Falmouth community as more than 2,100 Facebook users are calling for a boycott of the restaurant.
How it Began
The controversy began Friday night when Casino Wharf FX posted the status on their now-deleted Facebook profile: "Where you see quality entertainment from Boston and beyond...not the local crap!"
Falmouth resident Steven Moulton responded to the controversial post and defended local musicians, saying he was offended by the post and decided to "unlike" their page.
The exchange became fiery, as the unidentified person posting for Casino Wharf again criticized local bands and various aspects of Cape Cod, calling it "way behind the rest of the world" and "backwards." The author of the posts also criticized Cape Cod Community College and other local restaurants.
The exchange between Moulton and the restaurant has since been widely shared on Facebook.
The Boycott Forms
In response, Ryan Buckley, a Falmouth resident and member of a local band, created a page called "Boycott Casino FX," which now has 2,115 likes as well as and hundreds of comments supporting local musicians and culture.
"God Bless you all for supporting our backyard, our neighbors, our fellow citizens, our artists, our musicians, other restaurants and bars, our Community College and Cape Cod," Buckley wrote.
Casino Wharf deleted their inflammatory posts, posted an apology that has now since been deleted and told the Falmouth Enterprise that a former employee had gained access to their page and posted the critical commentary.
This explanation and apology was met with widespread skepticism from Buckley and other boycotters.
"I feel it's very hollow and still had the arrogance in tone as the original post and comments that started this whole movement," Buckley wrote to Patch. "Most here seem to feel it was honestly a brush-off and was said merely to try and appease the 2000+ that took offense to their community being bad mouthed."
The Casino Wharf's Facebook profile then shut down completely following the apology.
When reached for comment Tuesday evening, an employee at the Casino Wharf said all the managers were unavailable to talk and told Patch to call back on Thursday.
One Falmouth resident said he watched the entire transaction take place in real time on Facebook and was amazed by the power of social media in uniting a community.
"The whole story of the big off-Cape business trashing the locals…it just gets your blood boiling," Tony Sciarrillo, a long-time Falmouth resident, said of his interest in the controversy.
"Let’s face it, the things about 'being backwoods,' behind the times... I’ve worked in a million restaurants and bars and seen so many local acts, and that’s part of what we are here [on Cape Cod]. To see that trashed is not right," Sciarrillo said.
Sciarrillo said that a boycott is not necessarily effective, but hoped that Casino Wharf will further explain what happened.
"Two-thousand people saying 'I hate you' is a lot in this small community," he said on the phone. "Either [Casino Wharf's management] didn’t know the magnitude, or they knew and didn’t care. Both are the sad commentary of the inner workings of their business."
A Community Unites
Since Monday night, the anger on the boycott page has somewhat subsided and Buckley told Patch he hoped to shift the focus of the group to support local endeavors.
"We are in the process of switching the focus to the celebration of local arts and allow the public to use it for... posting upcoming gigs, business promoting bands, owners promoting their business, all while allowing the talk to go on regarding why this all happened," Buckley wrote in a message.
Tangentially, the group Cape Cod Proud has also emerged, which founder Ted Murphy said he created "on a whim" to help bring positivity to the polemic. The group has accrued about 1,000 likes in less than 24 hours.
Murphy said he, too, was initally hurt by the restaurant's posts.
"There is the initial anger of reading those things, and whether they were written by a former employee or whoever...that did hurt," said Murphy, co-owner of Silver Shores Shanty. "This is a town that we open up for tourists to come down and we work very hard for everyone to enjoy. So to feel that we are lesser people is just not right," he said.
But Murphy said it was important to make something good come of the situation.
He hoped his Facebook page could be a place for the community to acknowledge, thank and support their fellow community members.
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"What we’ve all been going through in the past six months with the different tragedies.…why don’t we try to highlight some positive stuff?" He said. "I think there’s need for it, and it makes you feel better writing on a page thanking someone for what they did for you."
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