Bay Street Theater to Give Refunds to Ticket Holders For Roger Waters's Performance Following Anti-Israel Sentiment

In light of musician and Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters’s anti-Israel sentiment, Bay Street Theater announced that anyone who wishes to boycott his sold-out performance scheduled this weekend will receive a refund.

Waters’s is set to perform at G.E. Smith’s ”Portraits” concert series at the theater in Sag Harbor this Friday, Oct. 30.

Tracy Mitchell, the executive director of Bay Street, told 27east that Bay Street is “committed to the right to free speech but also respects the rights of others who are offended by Mr. Waters’s scheduled show.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization, recently released a press release encouraging locals to boycott his events.

“Roger Waters is an entertainer who hates the Jewish State of Israel. He is a major promoter of the anti-peace Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement,” the release reads. “ This extreme anti-Israel campaign has never helped a single Palestinian as it is designed only to demonize and denigrate the lone democracy in the Middle East and the only society in the region where freedom of speech and artistic expression flourish.”

“At this time, when Israelis are being butchered by Palestinian terrorists, it is indeed unfortunate that he was invited to Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater this Friday to what he would block others from doing in Israel,” the organization wrote in the release. “The Simon Wiesenthal Center therefore calls on New Yorkers to give Roger Waters the reception he deserves: an empty hall. We urge people who may have been unaware of his hate-filled boycott campaign and bought tickets for his performance, to vote with their feet and instead stand in solidarity-outside of the theater-with the innocent victims of terrorism in The Holy Land.”

Several local Jewish residents have said that they would picket, 27east reports.