Edward Teach Brewing (ETB) has filed a pair of lawsuits connected to a Facebook post that the Wilmington, North Carolina-based craft brewery claims defames it and its owner Gary Sholar.
The complaints were filed against the author of the post, Madonna Nash, and former ETB brewer Erik Van Peterson, who allegedly affixed stickers with QR codes to ETB products on supermarket shelves. When scanned, the QR codes led consumers to Nash’s Facebook post, which was published on December 29 and has been shared more than 1,100 times as of February 1.
In the post, Nash shared her version of her daughter Asia Daye’s experience singing at ETB’s taproom on November 16. Nash claimed a “visibly intoxicated” Sholar tried to join Daye in a song, which scared her, so she stopped playing.
Nash described an interaction between Sholar and Daye’s friend in which Sholar “became very angry, freak[ed] out and started cursing.” Nash alleged that Sholar was “visibly drunk off of his ass, erratic, aggressive, and terrorizing my daughter and the patrons of his own bar.”
The first complaint, filed on January 25 in the North Carolina General Court of Justice Superior Court Division for New Hanover County, focuses on Peterson, ETB’s head brewer from August 2017 through February 2022, who allegedly placed the QR code stickers on packages of ETB beer at two Harris Teeter grocery stores on January 2.
“At no time did Peterson have the consent of the manufacturer, retailer or distributor of ETB’s beer products to place any labels on ETB’s branded products,” ETB wrote in the complaint, adding that the action ran afoul of federal law banning anyone from “intentionally tamper[ing] with a consumer product that is sold in interstate or foreign commerce.”
In addition, ETB also accuses Peterson of tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, libel per se and violation of the Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
“As ETB’s former head brewer and as the current director of operations for Flying Machine Brewing, Peterson knew that a significant portion of ETB revenue comes from the sale of its products in grocery stores,” ETB wrote. “Moreover, Peterson knew that potential ETB customers would be induced not to purchase ETB products after reading the defamatory Facebook post.”
The brewery claims “Peterson’s interference with ETB’s customer relationships and prospective sales” cost the brewery more than $25,000 in lost revenue and reputational harm. Neither Peterson nor Nash were at ETB on the night described in the Facebook post.
“Peterson failed to exercise reasonable care and was otherwise negligent in republishing the accusations in the defamatory Facebook post,” ETB wrote. “On the face of the defamatory Facebook post, it is clear that the author of the post had no personal knowledge about the events described in the post.”
In its complaint, ETB claims that Peterson was “acting in his individual capacity” when he allegedly affixed the stickers to ETB products and “not in any official capacity on behalf of Flying Machine Brewing.”
The second complaint, filed on January 31 in the North Carolina General Court of Justice Superior Court Division for Brunswick County, is focused on Nash and accuses her of libel per se, libel per quod, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, tortious interference with contract and business relationships and unfair or deceptive trade practices.
ETB asked the court for a permanent injunction against Nash, a jury trial, compensatory damages in the amount of $25,000, punitive damages determined at trial and attorneys’ fees.
In the complaint against Nash, ETB included screenshots of a Facebook Messenger conversation between Nash and taproom manager Amy Cavasos on December 29, the day Nash published her post. The women discuss having a face-to-face conversation that never materialized.
“I mean no harm to your staff,” Nash wrote when Cavasos told her the bad publicity would affect taproom workers. “At the same time, if these things were true then I would stand by what I said. It’s a shame if this was to affect them personally. But it wouldn’t be my fault in truth.”
Nash asked Cavasos “Is any of it true?” and Cavasos responded “Not much of it.”
After the exchange, Nash revised some of the language in her post “to reflect a clearer picture of the whole situation,” she wrote.
ETB included affidavits from four people who were in the taproom on November 16 – two bartenders (Noah Powell and Logan Chaucer) and two patrons (Christine Sprow and Phillip Kunzelman).
All four accounts admitted there was a heated interaction between Sholar and Daye’s friend, but described Nash’s version of the night as “grossly exaggerated” (Kunzelman) and “largely false and blown out of proportion” (Chaucher). All included witnesses said they did not believe Sholar was inebriated.
For its part, ETB published a rebuttal saying that “much” of the December 29 post was “totally false and slanderous” and has resulted in “a vicious and misguided campaign to destroy the brewery’s business and to throw its employees (and their families) out of work.”
According to ETB, it “has tried to be the adult in the room, and would prefer to address the situation directly with the mother and the performer,” but has been unable to engage in “meaningful communication” with either.
A video was also posted on January 26 by an anonymous Facebook account allegedly depicting a brief interaction between Sholar, the singer and her friend. The video has 40,000 views.
In the video, Scholar can be heard calling the friend or the singer “a fucking entitled bitch” and telling them to “get out.”
As a result, the brewery has lost local placements and may have been the target of threats, according to Port City Daily. More than a dozen accounts have stopped ordering ETB products.
An ETB employee called 911 on Saturday, January 27, to report a threatening phone call to a worker that said people needed “to get out of the brewery tonight because it’s not going to be good for anybody,” according to the 911 call obtained by Port City Daily.
Brewery staff closed early on Saturday and hung a sign on the door telling patrons the brewery was closed due to a bomb threat, according to WECT. The Wilmington Police Department is investigating the incident and the brewery filed a report, a police spokesperson told Brewbound.
Requests for comment to Nash, Date and Peterson have not been returned as of February 1.
This incident isn’t the first time social media has been used to draw attention to alleged inappropriate behavior by brewery owners or leaders. In 2021, industry women shared a tidal wave of experiences of harassment, discrimination and sexual assault endured while on the job.
Most of the thousands of accounts shared were done so anonymously and were published to Instagram on the accounts of Brienne Allan (@ratmagnet), now a brewery owner, and @EmboldenActAdvance, a volunteer-run account created for the purposes of “sharing stories of harassment in the alcohol industry and providing resources.”
Few, if any, accused breweries have filed defamation lawsuits since stories came to light. Several breweries terminated employees who were named as bad actors.
The difference between the 2021 outpouring and the ETB situation is that ETB maintains Nash’s account of November 16 is false.
“The brewery is in the business of making beer, not filing lawsuits,” ETB attorney Thomas Varnum said in a press release. “But after more than a month of attempting to reach out directly to Ms. Nash and asking her for a dialogue, all to no avail, there really wasn’t another option.
“The brewery cannot be expected to continue to suffer the widespread and ongoing attack on its business and the livelihoods of its dedicated employees,” he continued. “What’s said and shared on social media has real life impacts, perhaps especially when what’s said is untrue. For the brewery and its employees the effects of Ms. Nash’s defamatory post and the reactions it purposefully instigated have been enormous.”
ETB produced 1,020 barrels of beer in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available from the Brewers Association (BA). The brewery was founded in 2017 and has statewide distribution in North Carolina.