A drag queen show at Caffe Fantastico scheduled to be held on Saturday June 18, 2022, in Victoria, B.C. has been cancelled.
The Sashay CafĂ© holds a monthly drag show for “all ages” in Victoria, B.C.
Patrol officers were dispatched to a business in the 900-block of Kings Road who received “concerning and threatening phone calls” reads the police media release adding “The comments received caused concern for the safety of staff, event participants and guests”
Staff have been receiving phone calls to the CafĂ© from people expressing their disapproval of “grooming children to be gay” and the CafĂ© providing a space to enable it.
Taylor claims the criticism they are receiving come from so-called “far right-wing extremists” citing incidents in the United States not Canada, according to the CBC
CafĂ© owner Ryan Taylor has tried to counter the criticism saying the drag show “is a simple dress-up show,” where performers sing and dance in drag to encourage children to “express themselves.”
“It’s for people who are looking for an avenue for expression and a safe place,” he said.
The calls have been reported to the Victoria Police and they are currently investigating the situation.
We reached out to the Café owner Ryan Taylor to clarify the threatening call because we noticed conflicting quotes when we compared the stories of multiple media outlets.
CBC reported someone threatened they were going to shoot the place up.
“CafĂ© owner Ryan Taylor said staff received many hateful calls, but one call on Tuesday turned especially aggressive when the caller threatened to “shoot up the place and everyone in it.” wrote CBC
The other news outlets we cross checked either left the quote out or got it right but some wrote misleading clickbait headlines.
The CafĂ© owner Ryan Taylor responded to our email saying he did not take the call but from his understanding the caller said “someone should shoot up the place and everyone in it” wrote Taylor adding “it should not be quoted that the caller threatened to do this themselves”.
It appears the CBC is misleading the public with the wording of the report because it suggests the caller threatened to shoot up the place not “someone should” which indicates they hope someone else would.
Check News and Victoria Buzz got the quote correct but then wrote misleading headlines that the caller threatened direct gun violence from themselves.
ChekNews reported the quote correctly but they wrote a misleading headline “Victoria drag show cancelled after venue receives shooting threat”
VictoriaBuzz wrote a headline that implies the caller was going to do the gun violence “Victoria drag show cancelled following harassing calls, shooting threat”,
Saanichnews did not mention the quote but they did write a misleading headline that someone directly threatened gun violence “UPDATE: Victoria drag show cancelled after threat of gun violence during Pride Month”,
Global News and Timescolonist didn’t mention gun violence and reported threatening phone calls.
The drag show was for all ages and family, It’s fun for all ages a media according to one media outlet.
“It’s so family-friendly, you can tune into primetime TV to catch Ru Paul’s Drag Race.”
On the IMDB Ru Paul’s Drag Race is given a MPAA TV age rating of 14+.
According to the parents guide sex and nudity is mild and is said to contain “Many sex jokes through out the series.”, while there is some sexual innuendo, all nudity is blurred.
Profanity for the series ranks as severe because the use of curse words are consistent in the episodes and many of the “African-American Contestants use the N-word” a lot.
This was one of the many drag show and pride events happening across Canada. On June 17, 2022, Surrey, B.C. held a pride dance for kids K-12 and banned all the parent and guardians from seeing what is going on inside. However trans activists and “allies” were allowed.
The city cited “privacy and safety” concerns of the children for their reason to ban parents and guardians.
On June 8, 2022, there was a taxpayer funded “drag queen story time” for kids aged 0-12 at the Pickering Public library.
There was also a “drag queen story hour” at the Dorval public library in Quebec.