At the Broken Spoon restaurant on Main Street in Franklin, Miriam Kovacs turned off her stovetop and took down her open sign and outdoor flags as she closed up after a Thursday night dinner shift. For a weeknight in February, business was decent, she said.

But it was far from a typical Thursday for Kovacs, which had little do with the signature bao buns she serves daily. Instead her day was consumed by a Facebook post from the Franklin Police Chief David Goldstein that called her out for saying the police department did not do enough after she was targeted by white nationalist groups this summer.

The purpose of the post was to address complaints made against the department, wrote Goldstein. But for Kovacs, who never heard anything directly from the chief prior to the post going live, the public nature of sharing her name and identifying her as a local restaurant owner felt like retaliation and intimidation.

With about 250 comments on the post, this public discourse puts a spotlight on Kovacs and her prominent Main Street business, she said.

“I’m not hard to find, which is also why it is extra dangerous for him do things like this,” Kovacs said. “It’s retaliation and targeting and bias, dangerous, unprofessional.”

Some came to her defense; others vilified her.

“Why would the police department, a public service establishment, address this issue on social media?” one commenter said. “You basically put a target on this women’s back for people who disagree with her, and the group that’s targeting her.”

After Kovacs supported a counterprotest to a white nationalist demonstration in Kittery, Maine, this summer, one-star reviews from Nazi Germany aliases flooded her online reviews.

She contact the Franklin Police Department and city council in the aftermath. The city adopted a hate and intolerance resolution in response and established a citizen’s task force in Franklin to bring residents, business owners and city officials together to address the issue.

Since the summer, Kovacs hasn’t heard much from city officials or the police, she said. But after Kovacs participated in a state-led public hate crimes forum earlier this month and talked about the response from Franklin police, Goldstein took to Facebook.

“It has been some time since I have put pen to paper, but I find that there are recent issues of importance that should be addressed in light of complaints,” he wrote.

“Kovacs, who implied that her objections about being targeted by a white supremacy group were met with no action by the city. In truth, as soon as the Franklin Police Department received the complaints from Ms. Kovacs, we addressed the issue as we should.”

In response to the post, many comments accused Goldstein for public retaliation. Others took aim at Kovacs and her business.

“I wish you no ill will but will never eat at your establishment,” one woman said. “I’m sure others feel the same.”

Many comments also referenced direct support for the police department.

Kovacs said she supports the police and provided dinner for second- and third-shift officers for the past two Thanksgivings and Christmases.

“I’m being treated like I committed a crime, when the people that are supposed to take care of their communities aren’t,” she said.

Goldstein said doesn’t regret defending his department. Kovacs was the one who brought to the public sphere in her own social media posts and interviews with the press, he said.

“Had none of that been available, I would never have put her name up. But because it was already there, is public information, let’s just call it as it is,” he said.

The intent of the post was to defend his department, said Goldstein. Since Kovacs first reported the online incidents in July, his team has investigated the case in their detective unit and followed through with the attorney general’s office and FBI. In December, anti-Semitic graffiti, including a swastika and the words “white power,” was spray painted along the side of city building.

There are still no leads, but the investigations remain open, Goldstein said.

“I would love to know who’s doing this. It would make me feel good to know who’s doing this and to possibly arrest him and charge them,” he said. “But I can’t do that until I have what’s called evidence, unless she wants me to just walk into people’s houses without any reasons to do so.”

With the rise in white nationalist activity, particularly from groups like NSC-131 that were behind the July incident, Kovacs said she knows investigating these incidents can be difficult for police departments.

Despite being New Hampshire’s smallest city, Goldstein said his department responds to up to 30,000 calls a year.

“When I’m putting out three officers on a shift, the back-of-the-envelope arithmetic really makes things quite apparent that we’re dealing with a lot of issues here,” he said.

Goldstein said his department has talked about their role in the community in staff meetings and also undergone implicit bias trainings. But there is also a unique, personal element to the Franklin department – Goldstein, who is Jewish, has been the recipient of personal attacks.

“I’ve experienced it both in my personal life and my professional life. I understand where she’s coming from, I sincerely do,” he said. “Being a target because of the way you were born or something of that nature, it hurts.”

Kovacs’ restaurant, the Broken Spoon, combines her Hungarian, Jewish and Sri Lankan roots. It is a culinary experiment in a city that is almost 97% white, according to recent U.S. Census data.

And since moving to the community and opening her restaurant during the pandemic, Kovacs has been a voice in Franklin. She is quick to call out city officials, the media and others on social media, in defense of herself and her business.

After Goldstein posted the message on Facebook, Kovacs shared it on her restaurant page, asking people to “Post. Share. Protest. Call people who can help.”

Initially after the July incident, she joined the city’s citizen task force. However, she recently resigned after feeling as if the group had conversations without action.

“I don’t want to sit in a group and see everything that’s going on and not be able to do anything when it’s just taking time away from me from getting things done,” she said.

She hopes to start her own advocacy group as a community wide resource that could address support for women, minorities, the LGBTQ community and others, she said.

She also wants to create a resource for businesses who face similar attacks.

“It’s not an isolated incident, and it’s something that keeps happening across the country,” she said.

Kovacs recently asked patrons for donations to help support her small business. She hopes to use funds to continue to prepare community resources, like “easy activism” packets she made this summer – which included pre-written letters to elected officials asking them to take a stand against white supremacy.

“It’s important work that has to be done. But it’s emotionally exhausting and everything takes time,” she said.

But despite the financial strain and public and online disputes, she has no intentions of leaving Franklin.

“I refuse to close this place,” she said before locking up for the night.

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