A community activist from Staten Island who knew comedian Pete Davidson’s father, a fireman who was killed on 9/11, excoriated the 27-year-old “SNL” star on Monday after he mocked residents of his home borough for protesting the arrest of a local pub owner.
Activist John Tabacco took the podium when a reporter asked about Davidson’s comments during a press conference outside Mac’s Public House in Staten Island, which recently made headlines when its co-owner declared the pub an “autonomous zone” in defiance of state lockdown mandates.
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"What they want to do is go on national TV and humiliate the little man when he is down. That’s quite disgusting."
Community activists react after Staten Island native Pete Davidson called SI COVID restriction protesters "babies" on @nbcsnl. pic.twitter.com/3EagjH0MNH
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 7, 2020
“I kind of almost feel like the ignorance level is so high now that you have mega-millionaires in the national spotlight, like the folks on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and instead of making fun of their friends and the local business owners who are broke and crushed and bankrupt, instead of coming down here as fellow Staten Islanders and standing up for them and bringing a positive light to this thing, what they want to do is go on national TV and try to humiliate the little man when he’s down, and to me, that’s quite disgusting,” Tabacco said.
Referencing Davidson’s recent film “The King of Staten Island,” Tabacco continued, “As I mentioned before, my dad was a member of the NYPD. The King of Staten Island’s dad was a proud fireman and a great friend of mine, and I saw Staten Islanders heavily come out and support him, his mom, his family, and everyone else in a time of need after 9/11, when I cried for his father.”
“So, when I hear stuff like this, it hits me emotionally,” Tabacco added. “And I think, ‘Wow, if you came out of your perch in your affluent neighborhood and came down here and told the liberal left this is a good thing because it’s about our freedom and liberty, we probably wouldn’t’ be standing here today.’”
Davidson scoffed at residents of Staten Island who gathered last week outside Mac’s Pub to demonstrate against the lingering state and local lockdowns that have crushed small businesses in New York City especially. As The Daily Wire reported:
“SNL” cast member Pete Davidson on Saturday ripped into those protesting the arrest of a pub owner in Staten Island who violated COVID-19 restrictions earlier this week, and mocked them as the sort who would deny the Holocaust.
“I saw the protests. People were outside the bar shouting about freedom, taunting the cops, chanting that they should arrest the governor, but it’s Staten Island, so I assumed that it was just like a typical last call,” said Davidson, 27, who is himself a Staten Island native.
[…]
“But the argument that people in Staten Island don’t want to drink outside can be disproven by going to literally any Little League game,” Davidson added. “One guy at the protest even gave a speech where he literally compared not being able to drink indoors to being Jewish during the Holocaust, which must have been awkward for the people there who had to suddenly pretend they believed in the Holocaust.”
Davidson, who starred in “The King of Staten Island,” added that the protesters were making Staten Islanders “look like babies.”