KALAMAZOO, MI -- A Kalamazoo County man says he has been so inundated with claims that he is a Nazi that he closed his business Wednesday and is not sure if he will ever be able to reopen it.

Aaron VanArsdale says that since social media chatter became a firestorm Tuesday evening, he has received death threats, calls from all over the United States and is worried about his safety and that of his family.

The social media activity even promoted forbes.com to post a story Wednesday afternoon.

"We would get rushed," he said of opening his craft beer-to-go business Wednesday and thereafter. "There would be protesters all over the place."

Facebook users have been calling on others to stop patronizing VanArsdale's business, a craft beer specialty tavern. And one or more called for a protest outside the business. That was to begin at 3 p.m. Wednesday but never materialized.

VanArsdale, 43, has seen a barrage of message shares on Facebook, in which he is called a racist, a Nazi and/or a white supremacist. Those began at about 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15, and involve two images that he had posted on his personal Facebook account in 2011, he said.

One shows him throwing up a Nazi salute and another shows him with a Nazi swastika finger-painted on his forehead. He said the first was done in humor and the second was Photoshopped, but also done in humor.

"I had distasteful pictures up. I get it," he said. "I'm guilty (of that). It was in bad humor. But I'm not a racist."

He said the pictures were taken six years ago during a tailgate party before a University of Notre Dame football game in South Bend, Ind. He said he has a wry sense of humor and is sometimes not politically correct.

He has deactivated his personal Facebook account as well as the Facebook account for his business, called Craft Draft 2 Go.

"We're tailgating," he said. "It was in bad judgment. I'm not a Nazi. I'm not a Nazi sympathizer. I'm not a white supremacist. I'm not an extremist. I'm not a fascist. I don't think violence solves anything."

He said he has had friends reach out to him to say they know he's none of those things. But he said he has also lost some friends since the Facebook firestorm started. Some included the six-person staff he had at his business.

Craft Draft 2 Go, on Stadium Drive in west Kalamazoo is a craft beer tavern/specialty store that allows customers to sit and drink Michigan-made craft brews, or buy them and take them home in growlers.

It was opened by VanArsdale and a silent partner -- a high school friend from Goshen, Ind. -- in September of 2016 in the University Commons, the shopping center on Stadium Drive, just east of Drake Road.

VanArsdale said workers quit this morning, telling him they were afraid to be associated with the assertions of being white supremicists or Nazis, and they were afraid to come into work.

At 3 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 16, when the business was scheduled to open, VanArsdale was sitting somberly at a McDonald's restaurant in a community that neighbors Kalamazoo. He said he needed to guard himself against personal threats and was wondering what to do with his business.

"I don't plan on going back into Kalamazoo, "he said Wednesday afternoon. "You're run out of the city."

Early Wednesday morning, he was scraping white paint off the windows of the business. It was graffiti that called him "Nazi scum" and that said "Get out" and "F--- You."

The inflammatory pictures of VanArsdale were included in a message thread that appears to have originated on Aug. 4 in which a man confronts him about the images, saying they are pro-Nazi. In an online discussion, VanArdsale stated that he is a U.S. Navy veteran who is a pro-American Libertarian. He said that means he is not for either of the two main political parties and thinks libertarian philosophies should get a bigger voice.

He said he had been tagged in an online conversation in early August about a Christian community in Petoskey that apparently makes room for Christians but not others. He said one man shared his comments with another and the back-and-forth conversation about him and the pictures ensued between him and another man on Aug. 4.

VanArsdale said nothing more was said about those conversations until Tuesday, when he assumes they were dragged into national outrage about the white supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Va.

White supremacists, neo-Nazis, members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Alt Right, clashed with counter-protesters last weekend resulting in the death of one young woman and the injury of many others.

"The climate that happened in Virginia over the last weekend, I'm getting lumped into that," he said. "... Last weekend kicked off and now all of a sudden, people are paying attention. It's a witch hunt now."

He said he cannot understand how people can make death threats over pictures. He said there were others on his Facebook page of him draped in an American flag or in Halloween costumes. All were done in fun, he said.

He said he has not been answering the many phone calls he has received since last night. He estimated that he had received 25 calls on Wednesday.

"I'm guessing some of these are from people who really want to have it out with me," he said. He said the area codes indicate callers from Tennessee and California as well as various places in Michigan.

He assumes some are from hate groups that may think he shares their views. Asked if any hate groups have reached out to him, he said, "No," but he expects some of them to, based on what has been said about him.

"They'll get shut down if they do," VanArsdale said. "I'll condemn them if they reach out to me."

He said he is not the man he is being portrayed to be.

"I'm not promoting hate. I can see where it could come across like that because of a symbol or because of an arm gesture," he said.

He also said, "I did a wrong thing. I'll own up to that. It was poor judgement. It was bad humor. I should have never done it. I hope the public can be forgiving. Let's try to unite and not hate each other."

"All of my craft beer friends, especially those in the Kzoo area, please stop going to Craft Draft 2 Go. These... https://t.co/o8UzzmECx3 — Chris Wahmhoff (@ChrisWahmhoff) August 16, 2017