Bayside Bar Spurs Outrage When Asians Called 'Cockroaches' Online

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Northeast Queens residents are boycotting local bar Brian Dempsey's after a comment comparing Asian people to cockroaches appeared on a worker's Facebook page earlier this month, according to locals and a screenshot of the post.

The Bayside bartender's now-private Facebook page briefly hosted a local Chinese restaurant review referring to Chinese and Korean individuals as "cockroaches," prompting locals to call for a boycott on the restaurant's profile.

The bartender denied she wrote the Sept. 15 comment in a follow-up Facebook post, according to QNS.com.

"Apparently my account was either hacked or cloned, a post was made on a Bayside site with some racist comments under my name," wrote the worker, who has worked for Brian Dempsey's since at least 2013, according to social media posts.

Reached by phone, the worker reiterated that she did not write the comment and declined to comment further.

A bar employee told Patch over the phone that owner Brian Dempsey was not available to comment, but the business addressed the worker's comment in a Facebook post published Thursday afternoon.

"We are aware of the racist comments being circulated around the social media space," the post says. "Brian Dempsey's does not condone nor accept these hateful comments."

"We consider diversity to be a fundamental value to be fully upheld, respected and are working on a solution so that we can better serve this community," the post adds. "We are deeply saddened to see this and offer our support to those who have been effected [sic] and offended by this unfortunate circumstance."

Hundreds of people have since commented online about the controversial post, and at least 10 have called for a boycott in reviews posted to the Facebook page for Brian Dempsey's, which celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this month.

"Staff makes terrible comments, gets called out on it and lies. Restaurant backs them up and doesn’t apologize," Kayee Elvee Eyeen Chan wrote. "Why support them, there’s so many options there."

"I wouldn't visit, or endorse any establishment that allows racist and prejudice remarks to go unchecked," André Blackwell commented.

Locals have also taken their outrage to the bar's Yelp page, which on Friday started displaying a "unusual activity alert" that pops up for businesses that have "recently made waves in the news."

"It was really distressing to me," the person who first spotted the comment told Patch.

The person, who is Filipino and has lived in Bayside for 10 years, asked to be anonymous for fear of retaliation for drawing attention to the worker's comment.

"If this is what people are like in the online community, imagine what they're like in real life," the resident said. "It's so tiring. You don't want to go and walk around the neighborhood anymore because you start getting scared."