Two Napanee business owners say that a photo of them with Premier Doug Ford, taken during the premier’s recent visit to their store, has brought on a bombardment of online abuse.

Joseph Imre and Jazmin Bansagi, owners of Seasons Fine Foods in downtown Napanee, say they continue to receive online and in-person criticism and even threats after posting a photo online of themselves posing with the Ontario premier when he stopped at their store on Saturday, March 23.

They say that the Facebook post, which has since been deleted, garnered more than 100 comments, most of them negative.

“We had to take it down,” Imre said during an interview with the Whig-Standard on Wednesday. “The page was just exploding.”

Imre said that since the post, the couple has been called “every name in the book,” despite not making their own personal politics known.

“We were just thankful for his business. We were thankful he dropped by our store,” Bansagi said. “We’ve never taken a political stance. … It was just cool to have him in the store. They were just bashing us.”

On Twitter, Ford’s tweet about his visit garnered comments about boycotting Seasons, or other businesses that showed the premier a welcome.

The day before Ford’s visit, a demonstration outside Conservative MPP Daryl Kramp’s office, which is located directly next door to Seasons Fine Foods, precipitated some bad blood between Ford naysayers and the business owners.

A gathering of more than 80 people protesting cuts to Ontario’s education system demonstrated outside Kramp’s office on March 22. The event was organized by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.

“We had kindly asked them to just respect our business and not block the doors,” Bansagi said. “They were very disrespectful towards us, so we had to call law enforcement.

“This is our livelihood. I’m just trying to make sure our customers can come into the store without feeling uncomfortable. They said, ‘Our cause is more important.’ What am I going to say?”

“Following the protest, a protester came in and threatened to write bad reviews about the store and to mobilize people to boycott the store as well,” Imre said. “We were fairly shocked.”

Joan Jardin, officer for OSSTF District 27, said protesters respected the business owners’ requests to keep their store entranceway clear.

“As soon as we got there, the business owner came out and told us not to be in front,” Jardin said. “We said, in fairness, we’re allowed to be, but we don’t want to block the way. Our intention is not to harm your business, not in any way, shape or form.”

Jardin said police arrived not long after and confirmed to the protesters that they “had every right to lawful protest.”

“We co-ordinated with the OPP prior [to the protest] and made sure that everything was lawful and orderly,” Jardin said.

John Vince, the chief negotiator for OSSTF District 27, tweeted on March 24: “Hey @seasonsnapanee you won’t be getting any business from my friends or family after calling police on our peaceful protest (And after @JoanJardin talked to u and bought ur wares!).”

Others retweeted his post, confirming they would be boycotting the store.

Vince said in an interview with the Whig-Standard on Wednesday that two of his colleagues went into the store to speak with Imre and Bansagi after the protest, wanting to “be able to tell our members that this is a place that is supportive of not having these huge cuts to education.”

“They explained there is a huge group of teacher here, and many are customers,” Vince said. “How is your business going to thrive if we have these cuts?”

Vince said that after two members spoke with the Seasons owners, they told their fellow OSSTF members that the situation had been “smoothed out.”

“Ironically, they then posted that photo with Doug Ford, so clearly our message hadn’t been heard,” he said. “We’re sorry they had chosen to go down that route of not supporting public education, but supporting Ford.”

For the next several days following their public Facebook post, Imre and Bansagi said online comments escalated to people posting bad reviews of the business. Imre and Bansagi deleted the photo of them with Ford and shut down the ratings part of their Facebook page.

“This has nothing to do with our business, with our service,” Bansagi said. “After that we got scared, so we shut it all down. We can’t be here 24 hours a day monitoring this post. We have to run a business.”

Andrea Loken is the president of OSSTF District 27. She believes the business owners, by posting a photo of themselves with the premier, have taken a political position in support of the Ford government, but should instead be speaking up for education.

“They have heard from teachers that this is going to hurt students,” she said during a phone interview. “They could make a statement. They could decline to post [the photo] on social media. I think maybe people are naive about when you do that, you are making a political statement. I think for our members, this is hurtful, because there is so much at stake here.”

Bansagi and Imre disagree. They maintain that their Facebook post was not political.

“We’re not going to not welcome him into our store. He’s the premier,” Bansagi said. “We’re going to show respect to everyone who comes through our doors, and that’s what we believe in. We believe in respect for everyone, regardless of their political affiliation, race, gender, social status. We just welcome people into our store.”

“We’ve never gone through this before,” Imre said. “I know in this day and age there’s a lot of hostility online, especially to politicians and other elected officials. We personally just don’t think that somebody’s private, personal political views should be taken out on the backs of local business.”

mbalogh@postmedia.com