MARYSVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) — A central Ohio LGBTQ-friendly brewery that was targeted on social media by a local conservative group has permanently closed.

Walking Distance Brewing Co. at 222 E. Eighth St. in Marysville welcomed patrons for the last time on Feb. 28, more than three years after it opened in October 2021. Owner Teddy Valinski announced the closure on social media, saying the decision to shutter the bar “didn’t come lightly.”

“We are so thankful for the community that we built together. And we are confident that the community we’ve built with you will continue to have a positive impact in Marysville,” said Valinski in the post. “Thanks for the three whimsical and zany years.”

Walking Distance was home to a collection of stouts, IPAs and lagers, along with a seltzer made in-house that was enhanced with lemonade and margarita flavoring. The brewery also served as a community meeting spot for events like Columbus Crew watch parties, fundraisers supporting the local library, and LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations.

While the brewery’s Pride events were meant to further inclusion for Marysville’s LGBTQ+ community, Valinski said on social media last June that Walking Distance faced a “year of slander and harassment” from a group named the Union County Faith Family Coalition.

Members of the coalition began taking to social media during the summer of 2023 to denounce the brewery’s drag queen shows, hurling unfounded accusations of pedophilia and grooming. Valinski cited posts by Leslie Reams, a coalition member and the wife of city councilman Mark Reams, who called the brewery a “den of depravity.”

“Inviting children to a bar and having drag queens teaching them to dance for cash tips from the drunks is the very definition of grooming,” a post by Reams states. “If you are okay with that kind of behavior, then you might be a pedophile.”

Valinski wrote that Walking Distance’s sales dipped after Reams’ posts garnered traction on social media. While the owner said the brewery will “never know exactly how much business we lost due to the slander,” he emphasized Walking Distance’s commitment to inclusivity for the LGBTQ+ community.

In another social media post last summer, the coalition said “this isn’t about people and their own personal sexual preferences” but rather “the children being exposed to adult material.” The coalition asked for an “open dialogue” with Walking Distance and LGBTQ+ advocates, while also arguing that Pride events were causing division in Marysville and suggesting the brewery should host “sexually explicit performances” in other central Ohio cities.

“I think if you’re honest in your hearts you know this too, an entire month of Pride wouldn’t be necessary if you were truly proud of it,” the group’s post said. “You’re more than who you like to sleep with or the clothes you want to wear. You were made for more than chasing dopamine hits until you die.”

The coalition’s posts against the brewery’s drag shows came as the Ohio Statehouse was reviewing a proposed bill that opponents said would amount to a ban of drag queens in public. The measure would’ve prohibited “adult cabaret performances,” defined as a show “harmful to juveniles” that features “entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performers’ or entertainers’ gender assigned at birth.”  

A conservative Lancaster group advocated for city council to adopt a measure with the same language after they argued a performance during a Pride event with a drag queen was “pornographic.” Small business owners in Lancaster said they experienced an influx of customers after their shops were included on a social media post tying them to the debated event.

Bellefontaine, a rural Ohio city, was originally supposed to be the first in the state to vote on whether to ban such performances in public. However, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in October 2023 that the proposed ordinance, which also used the “adult cabaret performance” wording, would not appear on the ballot given it was submitted fraudulently.