New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Cops probe theft of pride flag from eatery
Third time in less than a year at Blue Orchid in New Haven
When co-owner Michael Flora first saw the flag missing Saturday morning, he thought, “not again.”
NEW HAVEN — In the wee hours Saturday morning, a group of young people walked up to The Blue Orchid, a proudly gay-owned Pan Asian restaurant on Court Street, wrestled down the gay pride flag that hung above the entrance and stole it.
It was the third time in less than a year that someone had stolen The Blue Orchid’s rainbow flag.
But while the theft was upsetting, the aftermath of the incident — captured on security video that The Blue Orchid’s owners shared on their Facebook and Instagram pages — also showed the married couple that owns The Blue Orchid just how much good there is in the world and how much support they have.
On the video, one of the people climbs the side of an exterior wall of the restaurant, located at 130 Court
St., and struggles for nearly three minutes to remove the flag from its flag-holder above the front door.
After removing the flag, the person then tosses it to another member of the group, who waves it before handing it back, and they walk away. (Initially, the first individual leaves what appears to be a wallet and phone on a ledge of the building, but returns a short time later to retrieve them.)
The time stamp on the security video that caught the theft says the crime took place at about 2:45 a.m.
“This is the third time that it’s been taken down,” said co-owner Michael
Flora, who owns The Blue Orchid with his husband, Natthawut “Kyu” Tipjak.
When Flora first saw that the flag was missed Saturday morning, “I thought, ‘Not again,'” he said.
Then he thought, “it didn't even make it a week,” Flora said. “When I saw the video I was absolutely shocked because of ... how many people were there and didn't see anything wrong with it. It was a group of six people and no one thought” that maybe it was something they shouldn't be doing, he said.
The couple, who live in Orange, opened The Blue Orchid in December 2020.
The latest flag lasted about a week, after they hung it indoors over the winter following a previous theft last fall, Flora said.
They did not report the first two thefts. But this time, with a very clear video and stills to help any investigation, they called police, who are now investigating, Flora said.
According to the police report, “The suspect that removed the flag appears to be a white female with dark long hair, possibly 18-25 years of age. The remaining suspects on scene appear to be (4) four white males and (1) additional white female with blonde hair. All suspects are believed to be between 18-25 years of age.”
Over the weekend, two Blue Orchid customers stepped up and bought and hand-delivered a new flag — and even gave Flora and Tipjak a bunch of smaller rainbow flags, which they're giving away to customers who stop by.
After The Blue Orchid shared the video and photos on social media, it brought the restaurant more social media attention than it had seen since it opened in late 2020 — with the video widely shared, Tipjak and Flora said. As of Wednesday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than 9,180 times on Instagram.
It also spurred an outpouring of support from other downtown businesses, including Edible Couture, 168 York St. and Stranger Ways, said Flora.
Police spokesman Officer Scott Shumway confirmed a police report had been filed and that Detective Allyn Wright of the Major Crimes Unit is investigating, and said the video The Blue Orchid posted on social media is “one and the same” as the video provided to police.
According to the police report, “During the removal and handling of the flag, the subjects did not appear to degrade, disrespect or make any hateful actions or gestures toward the flag. At this time, it is believed that hatred, bigotry or bias did not play a role in this incident.”
But the executive director of the New Haven Pride Center said it looks like hate to him — and whether or not it was, the effect is the same.
“This incident is indicative of a larger wave of hate that is brewing both nationally and locally,” said Pride Center Director Patrick Dunn. “While these young folks may think it was a harmless joke, the trauma of this is very real for the small-business owners and community members it affects.”
Mayor Justin Elicker said “it is larceny to steal something. However, depending on what the investigation reveals, it could rise to the level of a hate crime. But that depends on what the investigation finds.”
Elicker called the theft “the actions of a small group of people” which “do not represent the feelings of New Haveners” as a whole.
New Haven residents “have demonstrated over and over again that we're open to everybody” and “the response by the public shows” that.
Flora, who recently started a new day job as chief financial officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, said he recently met officials from the FBI and the State's Attorney's Office who came in to that job to talk about hate crimes.
He has not yet reported this incident to them but is considering it, he said.
The Blue Orchid opened two Decembers ago in the brick-and-wood space that formerly was the Beer Collective (and previously the Blue Pearl).
The husband-and-husband team used the pandemic as a backdrop to help Tipjak launch one of his dreams: to serve his favorite comfort foods to the masses, with influences from Thailand, China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines, among others.
Tipjak grew up in a small, rural village in northern Thailand, outside Chiang Mai — and comes from a family in which his 92-year-old grandmother, mother and aunt all long have cooked up a storm.
The Blue Orchid is one of the only restaurants in Connecticut to serve authentic, steaming bowls of kao soi (also spelled kaw soy or khao soi), the hearty, aromatic, soupy curried egg noodle dish, often served with chicken, that you find both in restaurants and street stalls all over Chiang Mai and northern Thailand.
(It's actually one of at least three restaurants in Greater New Haven to serve the hard-to-find dish, two others being Koon Thai on Temple Street and Pho Zaaam on Route 80 in East Haven.)
Among the other “comfort foods” on the menu are several varieties of fried rice — including both spicy basil and pineapple fried rice, crab rangoon, a Thai sweet and sour dish and suki, a Chinese-influenced spicy Thai glass noodle dish. It also serves hot oil vegetable dumplings that one Yelp reviewer called “world-stoppingly good.”
Other dishes include Goong Ob, or wok glass noodles, Mee Hang, or soupless egg noodles, green curry noodle soup, red curry noodle soup and chili lime noodle soup.
Tipjak, who has a degree in food science from Chiang Mai University, handles all the culinary aspects of the restaurant while Flora, who formerly worked by day as chief financial officer of Marrakech
Inc., handles the business. All four of Flora's four children from his previous marriage have worked there.