Ice cream shop forced to close down over ‘sexy’ cow logo blames ‘radical liberals’

The ice cream shop's owner said critics were "on a crusade to destroy my business and my life"

(John Gabree/Facebook)

A New Jersey ice cream shop is shutting down, one year after its opening gained notoriety for its sexualised cow logo, and the owner is blaming one group in particular for the failed business – “extremist radical liberals”.

Anthony Tortoriello, the owner of Dairy Air, lambasted locals for their outrage towards the erotic cow-rump logo “offensive and sickening” during a community meeting he hosted..

“They were on a crusade to destroy my business and my life,” Mr Tortoriello said, after mentioning plans to retire after growing tired of running the controversial establishment. “I was totally berated and accused of being a woman-hater. It was nonstop harassment; it never ended.”

Montclair is considered to be a liberal stronghold in New Jersey, even earning the ridicule from former Governor Chris Christie who called the town the “People’s Republic of Montclair”. The controversy around Dairy Air quickly became viral on the Internet and was widely covered by the media.

The pandemonium around the Montclair ice cream shop began when Amy Tingle, owner of a neighbouring “studio, gallery and imaginarium” called Creativity Caravan, sent an open letter to Mr Tortoriello in December of last year.

“A hypersexualized cow with her ass upended and poking through a circle, tail raised up, waiting for what? I’m not sure, but I do know that I am repulsed and offended,” Ms Tingle wrote. “This kind of marketing scheme is the reason we currently have a sexual predator in the White House.”

Shortly after, Mr Tortoriello defended his logo—featuring a female cow in blonde pig tails, seductively licking an ice cream cone, with a tattoo on her perky bum—in a press release while stating he was working on establishing a new logo for the shop.

“We simply created a fun illustration to complement our fun name,” Mr Tortoriello wrote.

But the ice cream shop owner never took down or changed the logo. Mr Tortoriello told USA Today that it was a business decision to keep logo on.

“Rebranding would have cost over $15,000, not including everything that had been printed with the logo, which would have to go in the garbage,” he said. “Even on principle, do I want to spend $25,000 of my own money on that?”

Joe Wang, the landlord of the building of where Dairy Air was once located, said the ice cream shop likely closed down because it couldn’t make enough money for rent with limited hours of operations. The sign on the shop’s door said it was open only from Thursday to Sunday. “They couldn’t’t pay the rent with their limited hours,” Mr Wang said.

Ms Tingle, who declined to comment again on the controversy involving Dairy Air’s logo, seemed to agree with Mr Wang.

“As a business owner whose brick-and-mortar is also closing at the end of this month, I can attest that it is extremely hard to manage the high rents and costs associated with owning any small business in New Jersey,” she said.

Mr Tortoriello insists that the harassment involving his logo became unbearable to continue on with the ice cream shop business.

“People would walk in and see the logo and it would start up again, not to mention the letters and emails,” Mr Tortoriello said. “People would come into the shop and impose their opinions on my staff, in their face.”

The New Jersey businessman said the controversy around Dairy Air’s logo caused emotional strife and ridicule for his two teenage daughters. He said the girls were “embarrassed” to go to school.

“It’s not fair for a 15-year-old to get harassed by extremist radical liberal people,” he said.

Mr Tortoriello said he has no business plans, instead he is looking forward to spending time with his wife and daughters.

“There’s a cost of doing business,” he added, “and sometimes it’s just not worth it.”