Your family is enjoying a wonderful backdoor barbecue, as long as you don't burn 'em, when the city's warning sirens start blaring. A big storm is coming. With everybody safe in the basement, everyone trembles in fear as you hear a tornado's freight train sound blasts through the neighborhood.
Once the storm has passed, everybody slowly walks outside only to find your cedar shingles scattered across the yard.
From out of nowhere, the neighbors to the north walk over with a wheelbarrow and start picking up the shingles.
Still in shock at what just happened, you watch your neighbor take the shingles to another neighbor's yard and, using gasoline, set them on fire.
Then, you snap out of it, and your mind races to a fundamental right: Property still belongs to somebody, and boundaries still matter—even when tempers flare.
In Door County, Wisconsin (it's the state's left arm), a moment turned calm judgment into a public display of something totally different.
Robert Meredith is a bartender at Husby's Food & Spirits and a Charlie Kirk supporter, displaying that support by wearing a Charlie Kirk sweatshirt.
Soon, a coworker asked about the sweatshirt.
On Dec. 12, Husby's Food & Spirits employee Robert Meredith says he left his Charlie Kirk sweatshirt on a hook at work.
"Somebody had told me, 'Hey, where is your hoodie at?' I was like, 'I don't know -- probably at my house?'" Meredith said. "He said, 'No, it's probably not.'"
Meredith says he wasn't provided many details, but was told Husby's co-owner, Chad Kodanko, burned his Kirk sweatshirt.
"It was talking politics in a bar and led to that, which is never good," said Meredith, who also says he was told there is a video of the incident, but he has not seen it.
Politics rarely gets discussed at Husby's, but news of what happened quickly spread through Door County. Paul Kwiatkowski lives in Door County. Kwiatkowski didn't take what happened lying down; for him, the human part of the equation had been forgotten.
"We're talking about a guy who was assassinated 16 weeks ago, and his shirt that is symbolic of him, being burned — and not to mention, it also had an American flag on it," said Kwiatkowski, a Fish Creek resident.
He also wrote to the Sister Bay Village Board, letting them know what happened, especially since Chad Kodanko was not just a trustee, but a co-owner of the bar.
The letter led to Kodanko's resignation from the board.
Ownership and the Erosion of Respect
Remove politics from this equation, and we're left with a straightforward situation: An employer destroyed property that wasn't his. There's no policy in any handbook that makes burning an employee's shirt permissible, or any safety threat that would justify it.
In this case, what happened was only a personal judgment about what somebody wore.
A basic rule of thumb in any civilized setting has been: Don't take what doesn't belong to you!
The last I heard, standard still matters.
Taking and destroying private property violates basic norms that overlap with legal protections; civility isn't convenience, it applies even when affection turns to antipathy.
Reaction and Responsibility
That was the objective portion of this column. The rest?
Not so much.
For a while, Kodanko's actions were treated as nothing more than a joke. Kodanko apologized via text, but it wasn't an apology; it was more like an outlet that shared his opinions about Kirk.
The incident allegedly took place in front of other employees, with Wisconsin Right Now reporting that the incident became “an inside joke” among some staff members and caused Meredith to be distressed. Text messages shared online show Kodanko apologized for burning the sweatshirt, but did not apologize for the message sent to staff.
Meredith tendered his notice to the bar, a decision driven by discomfort with being tied to a narrow-minded, mouth-breathing employer who would allow such an action to take place.
Eventually, Kondanko resigned from the board and asked to step away from his ownership stake.
He also left a message on Husby's Facebook page, apologizing for what he called inappropriate behavior and for the damage it caused to employees, the community, patrons, and business partners. The reason for his stepping down was due to threats of violence towards employees and himself.
Final Thoughts
I had to read the Facebook post twice to make sure I didn't miss it, and it certainly wasn't there. Unless I pulled another "Manney" and missed it entirely.
What am I talking about?
Kondanko's apology to Meredith.
It was more important for Kondako to apologize to anybody with a financial stake, but not the man whose shirt was burned. Why?
“Charlie Kirk was a bigot and a racist,” Kodanko wrote in the text. “There is no place for that at Husby’s. We are inclusive, and the presence of that sweatshirt was offensive to many staff members.”
There are a few choice nouns and verbs I would love to write. But, since I like what I do and don't want to lose your respect, I'll keep my big mouth shut.
I have several left-leaning friends that I love and respect. I know what Kondanko would disgust them, too. One of the rules of the butt-ugly club is we don't talk politics — unless we can use it to burn somebody as a joke. I'm blessed that all of us have kept to that rule, but for every close lefty friend I have, there are hundreds just like the narrow-minded Kondanko.
When that family loses their roof, they don't expect neighbors to fight over shingles; people ask for help to get on with repairs.
Door County didn't seek help; it witnessed destruction in the name of ideology. The sweatshirt burned fast, but the wound it left in trust will take much longer to heal.
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