Brooklyn Brewery Owner Calls Vax Mandate 'Crime Against Humanity'

BROOKLYN, NY — The owner of a beloved Brooklyn brewery spurred outrage Wednesday when he took to Twitter to declare COVID-19 vaccine mandates "a crime against humanity."

"If you are not speaking out against them, you are a conspirator," wrote Threes Brewing CEO and co-founder Josh Stylman. "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Yours just happens to be unscientific, immoral, and evil."

Stylman, in a subsequent interview with Patch, called New York's vaccine mandates "illogical and immoral" and compared them to "segregationist policies" of the Jim Crow South and Nazism.

"I'm not comparing Brooklyn 2022 with Germany 1943," Stylman said, alluding to the genocide against the Jews at the height of the Holocaust. "My point is that other atrocities start with some group being deemed dangerous for no reason, and then from people becoming fearful and turning on one another from there."

(Unvaccinated adults are more likely to get COVID, including the omicron variant, the CDC says, making them more likely to become disease vectors.)

The tweet sparked an almost-instant backlash from Brooklynites — including a medical scientist who worked on COVID therapies and a local City Council member — who shared that they would no longer support the brewery on the basis of Stylman's opposition to vaccine mandates.

Seth Pollack, a former loyal customer of the Gowanus brewery, told Patch he won't be going back to Threes Brewing (a point he also made on Twitter, which prompted someone to threaten him).

"I was really disappointed," Pollack told Patch. "It's sad to feel that there are misinformed people in the neighborhood who aren't using their resources to keep us all safe by enforcing a public health mandate."

Stylman noted he tweeted his opinion from a personal account and said Threes Brewing has always complied with New York City's mandate that bars and restaurants check vaccine status of incoming customers.

The Brooklyn brewer said he is vaccinated against COVID-19 but has a long held disdain for a mandate, which he says doesn't take natural immunity, adverse vaccine effects or personal choice into account.

"I'm just speaking as an individual person and concerned parent," Stylman said, adding that his opinions were "too nuanced for a short form platform like Twitter."

Most people online, however, found it difficult to separate Stylman's personal opinions from his platform as a business owner.

"He seems to want us to believe his unscientific and dead-wrong opinions on public health... are somehow irrelevant to his job as a beverage manufacturer and operator of a public gathering place," wrote @akgerber.

The Twitter user added that Stylman's disdain for the vaccine mandate made him wary of trusting the owner's compliance with other "public safety regulations."

Stylman called this point "preposterous" countering that vaccine mandates don't serve any public good since vaccinated people can still spread the coronavirus.

While public health officials agree that vaccinated people can contract and spread COVID, especially the highly-contagious omicron variant, they say that vaccine mandates incentivize vaccination, which is the most reliable way to reduce severe illness, hospitalization, and death.

Pollack argued the real issue with the Threes Brewing CEO's tweet came down to respect.

"Small businesses are such a major part of the community in Park Slope and Gowanus," Pollack said. "This just feels like a slap in the face to everybody whose been working together to keep our neighborhood safe."