The party was supposed to happen by the pool, and was supposed to be a local celebration of Planned Parenthood's 100th anniversary.
But when organizers and guests began to arrive at the Hollander Hotel in downtown St. Pete Sunday afternoon, staff turned them away, said Wendy Grassi, a former Planned Parenthood staffer still active with the group. (Read CL's original story here.)
“When people came yesterday to attend, we were told 'Sorry, it's been canceled,'" she said on Monday. "Just like that. It's been canceled. No reason or anything.”
The party had been set to take place at the hotel's popular outdoor pool deck and bar from 4 to 6 p.m., a date Grassi said had been reserved with the hotel weeks ago. And Hollander staffers, in addition to not giving a reason for the cancellation, were brusque in their dismissal.
“They were so rude," Grassi said. "It was unbelievable.”
Planned Parenthood is, of course, incredibly controversial to some, and in the past year a doctored "sting" video that made it appear that the organization trafficked in aborted baby parts triggered more hate for the reproductive health care provider. Heightened tensions in a heated election season may have added to that.
Indeed, as the event was set to begin, a couple of protesters stood along the hotel's Fourth Street facade with graphic signs of mutilated fetuses alongside anti-choice slogans. They walked back and forth as restaurant patrons dined.
A pair of YouTube videos apparently released by the group later shows the protesters walking up to patrons and passersby and trying to engage them in conversations about abortion.
At one point, a protester is talking to a manager, who tries to assure her that the Planned Parenthood party attendees have left. He asks her and her companion to take their signs and leave, but the protester says she'll wait to make sure the Planned Parenthood group is actually gone. Since the protesters were on a public sidewalk, technically they could have stayed there as long as they wanted.
Hotel staff initially offered vague responses to questions on Monday about what took place on Sunday afternoon, only saying in an email that the hotel canceled the event out of concern for the safety of guests and patrons, that it sought to stay out of politics and, later Monday evening, that “things occurred that we can't divulge at this time that caused us to cancel the event for the safety of our guests and visitors at the hotel.”
On Tuesday afternoon, general manager Nick Herring reached out again via email to further clarify.
He said the attendees of the Planned Parenthood party did nothing wrong, but that hotel staff received menacing phone calls that gave management pause.
"Management made a decision to ask the party to go somewhere else because management was concerned with their safety and the safety of our hotel guests, and dinner patrons," he said. "Our front desk staff received several threatening phone calls."
The scene grew chaotic, Herring said, and a manager called the police.
"As a busy downtown hotel, at a time when guests were dining on the lanai and checking in and checking out, management made the decision to ask the group to find another place to celebrate their event to prevent anyone from getting hurt," he wrote.
Herring added that the hotel would welcome Planned Parenthood back, and that staff has already reached out to do so.
In the immediate aftermath of Sunday's events, it was unclear why things unfolded as they did. There were questions over whether the hotel's owners had an issue with Planned Parenthood's mission (of which providing safe access to abortion is just a small part). That turned out not to be the case.
And it would have been strange if it were. The hotel’s popular taproom and pool bar attract a young, diverse crowd and has been the site of events associated with Pride, the Sierra Club and multiple other left-leaning groups.
Nor is there any evidence of bias one way or the other with Hollander owner Michael Andoniades. CL checked for campaign contributions in his name and came up empty.
That makes Sunday's turn of events even weirder — and possibly scarier — for Planned Parenthood's local staff and volunteers.
As a former Planned Parenthood communications head, Grassi has been part of plenty of the organization's events, including at a local Hilton hotel, and the group had never been turned away.
“No one ever refused us. Certainly not at the last minute,” she said. “We were shocked. Really shocked.”
The protesters likely view their efforts on Sunday as a win for their cause, given that they appear to have been able to get management to cancel an event by maintaining a presence outside the venue.
The Hollander, meanwhile, is dealing with a backlash against its decision — some customers say they won't return to the restaurant until they get a better explanation. Some say they won't return at all.
The entire incident reflects the bitter divisions that have heated up during this bizarre 2016 election year. It's not the first time politics have interjected themselves into other aspects of life in Tampa Bay.
Hours after the Hollander incident, dozens of Trump supporters booed and walked out of comedian Amy Schumer's performance at Amalie Arena in Tampa after she called him an “orange, sexual-assaulting, fake-college-starting monster.”
In August, in the wake of a a visit to St. Pete brewery 3 Daughters by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the owners, who are Republicans and said they did not endorse Clinton, got slammed on social media. Some who despise Clinton even took to user-generated review sites to trash the brewery for hosting the candidate.
While diehard anti-choice activists perennially protest in all kinds of venues, the political climate — and Republican nominee Donald Trump's brash calls to action — have caused concern among progressives, some of whom are worried that the Hollander incident might set a precedent for future events.
Groups might see their ability to gather in their chosen venues, private or public, as inalienable, but will opposing activists may also be further emboldened to disrupt more events given the current political climate.
This article appears in Oct 20-27, 2016.