D.C. Restaurant Apologizes for Peddling Bottomless Mimosas During Kavanaugh Hearing

Shaw’s Tavern, a restaurant in Washington, D.C., has apologized for advertising a bottomless-mimosa special it offered during Thursday’s Senate hearing for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, reports People. “Open at 10 a.m. for the hearing,” the restaurant reportedly announced in a since-deleted tweet. “Bar service starts at 11 a.m. with bottomless mimosas.”

The bottomless mimosa deal was particularly tone deaf given the allegations against Kavanaugh and the documented connection between alcohol consumption and sexual violence: Ford alleges a drunken Kavanaugh and one of his friends, Mark Judge, assaulted her at a high school party. Those looking to discredit Ford’s allegations often employ tactics that define different “norms” for alcohol consumption, divided by gender lines: As Maia Szalavitz writes at Vice, “Men like Kavanaugh (and many others before him) have used alcohol or youth (usually both) to excuse, forget, or cover up selfish behavior — or at least distance themselves from it without taking accountability.”

Shaw’s Tavern, which is known as an establishment where sports and political enthusiasts can gather, has opened early with drink and breakfast specials for other moments of political importance: Recently, it did so for ex-Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey’s Senate hearing in July. But the idea of viewing politics as sports is rightly falling out of fashion in the Trump era, and restaurants should be moving away from treating events as if patrons were sports fans packing in to watch the big game. In reality, Ford was offering emotional testimony about the details of Kavanaugh’s alleged assault, which, as the Washington Post notes, was traumatic viewing for many women.

“I am here today not because I want to be,” Ford said in her opening remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.”

In an statement posted on Twitter and Facebook, Shaw’s announced it will donate all of Thursday’s profits to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). “We would like to apologize for the feature of bottomless mimosas,” the restaurant writes, noting it always serves bottomless mimosas with its breakfast and lunch menus. “It was an oversight on our part given the very serious circumstances of today’s hearing and in no way did we intend to offend anyone or make light of the situation.”

• D.C. Restaurant Apologizes for Offering Bottomless Mimosa Special During Kavanaugh Hearing [People]
• Silence on Wall Street. Tears in a Retirement Home. The Country Watches, Transfixed, as Ford Tells Her Story. [WP]
• All Politics Coverage [E]