Woodland bar stormed by protesters after threats cancel LGBTQ event

Hateful protesters attempted to force entry inside Mojo’s Lounge & Bar on Thursday night, hours after the bar canceled a drag event due to increased threats of ANTILGBTQ violence.

The Woodland bar announced on social media on Thursday that they had decided to cancel the drag queen happy hour planned for that night, citing concern about hate groups in Northern California inciting violence at drag events.

In spite of the cancellation, owner Christy Hayes said that Mojo’s was still busy on Thursday evening, when disrupters storming the event were met with about 60 patrons who had flocked to the bar to celebrate the last day of pride month and “not let hate win.”

“I’m still trying to process the ‘coulda, woulda, shouldas,’ and how we make sure this doesn’t happen,” Hayes said. “How do I stop hate from outside the community, and very far outside the community, from coming in when people are just trying to exist and live their lives?”

Threats of violence

Posts threatening violence at the Mojo’s drag happy hour began to circulate when a flier advertising the event was picked up by the far-right Twitter account Libs of Tiktok on June 8. The account has 1.3 million followers.

On June 29, Norcal Resist posted a warning to social media that members of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, planned to disrupt the drag happy hour. Norcal Resist is a grassroots activism group that monitors activity from far-right groups on encrypted messaging services like Telegram, where the messages about Mojo’s were discovered.

After the post from Norcal Resist, Hayes said, the threat began to feel “a little bit more local.” Mojo’s requested an increased police presence on the block for Thursday night, but decided to cancel the event entirely when the scheduled drag performers began to pull out of participating due to safety concerns.

“We worked closely with Woodland Police Department and local security services to make everyone as safe as possible,”

Mojo’s posted on social media. “Unfortunately, organizers and performers still did not feel comfortable putting the event forward with the recent escalation from hate groups in and around Northern California towards drag events.”

The disruption at Mojo’s comes in the wake of an incident earlier in the month when five members of the Proud Boys stormed a drag queen-hosted story hour in a Bay Area library, shouting homophobic and transphobic slurs until they were confronted by police.