Lakewood Candy Shop Harassed, Threatened For Selling Trump Parody Chocolate

LAKEWOOD, OH — The creamy chocolate ganache treat with a blond modeling chocolate toupee and googly eyes known as "Trump Dumps" was supposed to be a onetime offer, Cassandra Fear of Fear's Confections in Lakewood told Patch. She said that initially it was a response for her shop not being selected to be a preferred vendor at the Republican National Convention.

"After several rounds of phone interviews, email exchanges and of course, samples which were greatly enjoyed, I learned I had been rejected," said Fear. "I was told that they chose to have fewer food vendors than they had originally planned in the Freedom Marketplace."

Twice since the RNC, due to customer requests, Fear's Confections has brought back the Trump Dumps. The Dumps returned for Election Day, and more recently, for Inauguration Day.

Bringing the controversial candy back after Trump was elected apparently rubbed many of Trump's followers the wrong way. Once word spread via social media that the candy shop was selling the Dumps again, harassing phone calls and social media posts on her business page began. This activity was amplified when a right-wing talk radio personality questioned why the store wasn't selling "edible art that depict our outgoing president as a pile of s---."

The harassment peaked on Inauguration Day when the store received a bomb threat. "Someone called and told my employee that there was a bomb in the building, she hung up, quickly took care of the customers in the store and called the Lakewood police," Fear told Patch.

Like most of the other harassing posts and phony reviews on Yelp, the phone call was from out of state. Fear said that the Lakewood police were able to trace the call back to what was either a VOIP or burner phone from Pontiac, Michigan.

Fear said that this was the last straw. She consulted an attorney who advised her to take screen captures of the offensive comment threads online and then delete them from all of her social media channels and not to engage.

Fear told Patch that the whole ordeal has been beyond aggravating, however, "Sales have been great!"

Through all of this, her friends and regular customers were concerned, many of them defending her and the store on social media. One friend went as far as setting up a GoFundMe page to upgrade the store's security system.

Fear told her friend that they really didn't need to do this, but her friend sternly told her that "she had no choice, they were going to set it up anyway." Fear said the store already has a security system, but her friend, who is an engineer, had something more state-of-the-art in mind.

If you would like to contribute, you can visit the Fear's Confections Security System GofundMe page here.

Any money donated beyond the cost of the security system will be donated to Planned Parenthood.

This year our good friend and resident confectionary goddess decided to have a little fun with chocolate at a then Presidential Candidate's expense. Unfortunately some people didn't see it as funny and have reacted very negatively. Without going into detail, she has decided a security upgrade at her storefront is a prudent idea. If you can, please help us keep her and her business safe. Proceeds from this campaign will go directly to installing a security system. Bonus! Any amount over a security system goes directly to Planned Parenthood!

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Photo by Rick Uldricks/Patch