MILFORD, Ohio — Copper Blue owner Brian Arlinghaus announced in a now-viral Facebook post that he would be temporarily closing his restaurant after his staff walked out over his opposition to Ohio Issue 1, also known as the Reproductive Bill of Rights.
The constitutional amendment up for a vote in the November general election would add protections for women's reproductive freedoms like birth control and, most controversially, abortion.
Workers at Copper Blue collectively agreed not to return to work Wednesday after Arlinghaus placed a "Vote NO on Issue 1" sign in front of the restaurant on Main Street in Milford.
"I told the staff that I didn't fault them for taking a stance," Arlinghaus said. "That's their prerogative, but I let them know that I think it's a battle between good and evil."
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WCPO talked with Arlinghaus as he met inside his restaurant with many of the workers who decided to walk out.
He was trying to explain why he takes a hard stance against abortion protections for women and wouldn't remove the sign from the front of the business.
"I told the staff if I thought this was good for women, I would support passing the amendment, but I don't think it's good for women," Arlinghaus said. "As a Catholic, there's sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance, and one of them is the oppression of woman and children."
For some of the workers, though, the arguments for or against Issue 1 fell on deaf ears.
"We don't care," Will Prescott said.
Prescott and Gabrielle Melendez were two workers who refused to take a stand for or against the amendment.
The pair said they didn't want the sign out front inviting the political conversations now flooding Arlinghaus's Facebook post to visit them at work.
"The fact that the comments are so intense is exactly why we don't want it here," Prescott said.
"I'm a woman," Melendez said. "And if I choose to do something with my body, that's my choice. That's for nobody else's opinion. I don't need anybody else's anything for that."
Prescott and Melendez said they were prepared to find work elsewhere if Arlinghaus held firm on keeping the sign outside.
"I'm here every single day, and I hear stuff that I disagree with, but I keep it to myself because, at the end of the day, I'm here to do my job," Prescott said.
Copper Blue said they were going to reopen over the weekend after he talked to many of the workers who walked out, and they came back.
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