A city beer garden is facing furious backlash for holding a 9/11 “disco’’ event — and promoting it with an AI-generated skyline that wasn’t even of Manhattan — while giving just 20% of the proceeds to charity.
Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens, held a “9/11 Silent Disco for Unity & Support” party featuring “music, unity and remembrance’’ Friday, the somber 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people in Manhattan that day.
Some locals and social-media users swiftly slammed the venue for mixing a national tragedy with a bar night.
“Incredibly gross dance event,” said Wil Roth in a dissatisfied one-star Google review Saturday..
“Don’t pretend this tasteless, insensitive event and response was about anyone but yourselves.”
The event, which features headphones for customers, was promoted on Instagram with bizarre language about “dancing with intention” and came with a cheesy AI-generated flier with the wrong skyline in the backdrop.
The business responded to the public outcry by defending the event and its promotion of it.
“Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but we stand firmly behind our team and this post,” claimed the business in a statement on social media — adding the event flyer was “designed by a U.S. Army veteran on our staff using AI tools to bring the project together.”
“We could have done a ton of different things today or nothing at all in remembrance of 9/11,’’ Bohemian said. “We however wanted to do something.’’
The response only incensed some members of the public more.
“This cannot be real. They have to be f–king with us,” a fed-up reddit user said of the beer garden’s response.
Another forum user wrote, “I still can’t believe how gross this poster is and that they doubled down on defending it.’’
Someone else said, “They are being patronizing assholes here, and flexing MILITARY + Al is hilarious.’’
Read the full article here