PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) — The man accused of a hate crime for his tirade at Sister's Gourmet Deli in Portland's Monument Square was due in court Friday.
But, he never showed up.
You may remember when the sandwich shop posted surveillance video of Jesse Taylor's tirade on its Facebook page last summer, and it quickly went viral.
Taylor can be heard yelling obscenities, derogatory references about women and homophobic slurs to a group of female workers at the deli. At the time, Taylor pleaded guilty and served five days in jail for disorderly conduct.
Michaela McVetty is the owner of the deli and says this wasn't an isolated incident.
She said her employees have seen a lot, including three people overdose right in front of her shop.
McVetty says images like this make it hard to attract or retain customers.
"They come to Portland, the way life should be. You know where everything is great, come spend $10 on a sandwich and get yelled at for 10 minutes by the drunken man," McVetty says.
McVetty says she doesn't want to be the face of hate or discrimination. She wants to see Taylor and so many others like him get the help they need.
"We're ignoring we have a crisis. We have a drug crisis. We have a homelessness and mental health crisis." Mcvetty has met with Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling multiple times about the problem.
She said "I've kinda gotten nowhere. it’s like treading water and slowly drowning."
Strimling says he knows Maine has a serious mental health problem and says if Mainecare is expanded that will provide additional resources.
The mayor says "we've recently taken a lot of steps since that incident. we've gone to 24-hour shelters, milestone is going to be opening up more beds for folks to be able to detox."
A judged ruled Friday that Jesse Taylor can no longer enter the pedestrian area of Monument Square.