Anti-Bar Veloce Flyer Campaign Intensifying on the Lower East Side

The vicious grassroots war against Bar Veloce, as well as sister haunts Bar Carrera and Porsena, is noticeably intensifying here on the Lower East Side.  Such slandering flyer campaigns have been waged since early February, as EV Grieve first reported, urging customers to avoid a company that allegedly “shorted what they rightfully earned in wages.”

Indeed. What we have here is a protracted, bloody battle spearheaded by one John Sawyer Preston, a disgruntled former employee who initially sued the restaurant group one year ago for wage and labor violations. His street smear tactics, however, resulted in a counter-suit by ownership for defamation. Apparently customers were “driven away, potential investors lost, and employees unnecessarily upset and confused.”

Yet this doesn’t seem to faze Preston and company.  Neighborhood flyering is so much more ambitious this time around, with pole papers spotted as far south as Delancey Street and the Williamsburg Bridge.