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Saturday, a week after being trespassed from the Winter Garden Farmers Market, Kaitlin Bennett, founder of the right-wing site Liberty Hangout, returned to Winter Garden in triumph. The trespass notice had been rescinded. The city had apologized. And the far-right provocateur, who had once been sponsored by Infowars and whose stock-in-trade is confrontational interviews on culture war issues, was at Winter Garden City Hall meeting her fans. The plan was to go back to the market.
Wearing a summery floral dress, her signature blonde curls spilling down her back, Bennett was friendly, gracious and approachable. She kept her comments light, steering clear of the hot-button issues she typically covers as well as the white nationalist views, white genocide conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial she’s espoused on Liberty Hangout’s social media in the past.
John Clayton of Winter Garden brought his family. “We follow her, and we were kind of appalled at what happened here, you know, totally against her rights,” he told VoxPopuli. “We’re very excited that they rescinded that. I just feel like people need to be educated on the First Amendment. I think that’s important.”
“It never should have happened in the first place,” said Mike King who came from Apopka. “Cops should have known their laws. Obviously they didn’t. It’s public space.”
Don Norris, who said he was from Winter Garden and Ocoee, told VoxPopuli he wanted to see the city make amends publicly. “They should have apologized in public, not behind the scenes,” he said. “Announce it, saying, We’re sorry.”
Mike Alderman who came from rural East Orlando with his wife Annie, said that the city owed Bennett’s supporters an apology too.
“They put us out greatly because of what they did to you. We were kind of on edge for a while. It makes us afraid to come down to Winter Garden. They can do it to anybody just because they feel like it,” Alderman told Bennett, referring to the trespass notice.
Bennett spoke readily about the trespass incident and told her supporters she “would have definitely let them arrest me” if she didn’t have young children at home. “But the children come first, and they need me.”
On June 21, Winter Garden Police stopped her from conducting on-camera interviews for her YouTube channel, maintaining that the market was a private, permitted event. (The farmers market is owned and operated by Red Top Productions at Winter Garden’s Downtown Pavilion and surrounding blocks.) Bennett pushed back, arguing that the market was held on public, city-owned streets, regardless of the permit, and she had a First Amendment right to conduct her interviews there. The police gave her an option: leave or get arrested.
After she posted a video about the incident, which garnered more than half a million views, and her incensed fans bombarded the Winter Garden Farmers Market social media pages with outraged comments and even called Winter Garden Mayor John Rees at his home, the city backed down and rescinded the trespass notice.
"I don’t know why in Florida the police don’t know permit laws and boundaries around permit events and traditional public forums," Bennett said, adding that the Winter Garden Farmers Market incident was her third. "Hopefully we have something in the works ... to make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else.”
Then Bennett was ready to test that by going back to the Winter Garden Farmers Market.
“We’re going to say hi, grab some pictures and welcome me back and not see me get arrested because I’m doing nothing wrong,” Bennett said into the camera held by her videographer, while surrounded by her fans.
“So we’re gonna go patronize the Winter Garden Farmers Market and just engage in some free speech. Maybe we’ll even do some interviews in the forbidden farmers market footprint that they don’t want us in. So we’ll see what happens.”
And … well … nothing happened.
Bennett led her group into the farmers market, her videographer recording as they walked.
“Journalists are here,” Bennett said into her mic. “We’re having a good time.”
“Say, All right everyone, get out your phones and record,” the videographer directed her.
The group stopped at the intersection of Lakeview Avenue and Tremaine Street, between the city parking garage, the Downtown Pavilion and the splash pad. It’s a busy nexus for the market with booths lining the streets, patrons entering and leaving, parents pushing baby strollers, people walking their dogs. Fans gathered around Bennett in a loose circle.
There, Bennett generously talked with everyone who wanted a few moments with her, seeming to have all the time in the world to focus on each person. She took pictures with everyone who wanted a keepsake. At one point, a young boy, maybe 4-years-old, came up with his father. He stood, quietly flossing, while his dad talked to Bennett, then he shyly asked if she would be his friend. Bennett broke into a big smile. “I absolutely will be your friend,” she said.
Despite the presence of a videographer and a crowd of people recording with their own phones, folks at the farmers market largely steered around Bennett and her fans, (some in T-shirts designed to elicit reaction) and kept right on walking. There were no police. No hovering event staff. No protests. No one seemed vaguely irritated. Or even aware that Bennett was there.
One fan in a T-shirt that read “Christian, White, Straight, Republican, Unvaxxed, Gun Owner, Meat Eater & Male — How else can I piss you off today?” who declined to give his name told VoxPopuli he expected some confrontation at the farmers market. He thought the incident-free event was … boring.
Still, as VoxPopuli was leaving, we spotted him chatting with Bennett, who he said earlier he's followed since her days as president of Kent State University's Turning Point USA chapter. As Bennett's videographer filmed their conversation, he didn't look bored at all.
