Downtown Naples businesses confused by profane flyers found on storefronts

A controversial message could be seen on some shops in Southwest Florida to start the week. It’s causing confusion among store workers and owners. Those responsible say it’s meant to act as a positive rather than a negative.

Flyers with profanity could be seen on businesses Monday in downtown Naples. We chose to blur the images of the words due to the profane content. The people who put up the flyers says it’s to provide exposure for their own business.

When Rosalyn Morse got to Bistro 821 to clean during the morning, she was greeted with an unexpected sight.

“All six of our windows were covered head to toe, and you could not see out with these fliers,” Morse said. “I know it was vulgar.”

The flyers read “# [f-word] Average” and below “Ambitious mindsets vs. Status quo.”

Morse discovered the surrounding storefronts and businesses across the street were also pasted with flyers containing the same message.

“I would imagine that business owners wouldn’t want to be associated with something so tacky done that way,” Morse said.

Across the street co-owner Ben Nelson of Silver Eagle Gallery was unimpressed by the unsolicited flyers.

“What good does, you know, covering a business’s windows with profanity?” Nelson said. “And I guess a hashtag that we don’t even know what, where it’s going to lead you.”

Matthew Meyer and Andrew Herrera put up the fliers in hopes of gaining exposure for their business. They even did the same thing at Naples High School.

“Our apologies for you guys that do not like the profanity, but the profanity is what causes the attention,” Meyer said.

“I mean, the small businesses, we want them to thrive,” Herrera said. “If anything, I would say that our flyers would gain these businesses sales if anything.”

Manager Kimberly Miller of Butterfly Beach disagrees. She says they don’t want to be associated with the kind of language on the flyer.

“Maybe it is something positive, but their choice of words in the way they did it, I think people are confused,” Miller said. “They don’t know what it means.”

Morse also wonders about the purpose of the flyers. She hopes the windows at Bistro 821 and nearby business are free of the profane messages when she returns to work tomorrow.

“I think that maybe there’s a better way to go about getting your message across than invading on peoples’ businesses,” Morse said.