Montclair Ice Cream Shop Closes, Owner Blasts ‘Radical Liberals'

MONTCLAIR, NJ — The Montclair ice cream shop with the “sexy cow butt” logo is closing, and its owner says that a public outcry from “extremist liberals” has begun to affect his family’s private life.

When Anthony Tortoriello opened Dairy Air – pun intended – he had no idea of the firestorm of controversy about to descend on his fledgling business. But then the Bloomfield Avenue shop unveiled its new logo: a cartoon cow gazing over her shoulder with a saucy look and her posterior jutting out.

While Tortoriello maintained the logo was just an attempt at creating “a fun illustration to complement our fun name,” many social media users and community members didn’t feel the same way, calling the logo “offensive” and “hyper-sexualized.”

“This kind of marketing scheme is the reason we currently have a sexual predator in the White House,” said Amy Tingle, a Nutley resident and Montclair business owner, who was one of the first to publicly lambaste Dairy Air's logo on Facebook.

"Sell your ice cream on its own merit,” she wrote. “Sell your ice cream because it is delicious. Sell your ice cream because it is unique and it is made in a way other ice cream isn't made. Sell your ice cream because it is a good product sold at a good, fair price point. Do not sell your ice cream by selling me out, and by selling out my collective body of women allies. Do not sell your ice cream by sexualizing us."

• See related article: Montclair Shop's 'Cow Butt' Logo Is Making People Freak Out

After the controversy hit, Tortoriello, a father of two teenage daughters, and his business partner Jeff O'Neill, also a father of two, said that they he never intended for their ice cream store or its brand identity to be so divisive. The local business owners said that they planned to ditch the sexy cow logo and work on a new version.

However, on Monday, Tortoriello told NorthJersey.com and the USA Today network that he made a "business decision" not to change the logo after all.

"Rebranding would have cost over $15,000, not including everything that had been printed with the logo, which would have to go in the garbage," he told reporters. "Even on principle, do I want to spend $25,000 of my own money on that?"

The point became moot when Tortoriello decided to pack it in, NorthJersey.com reported. (Read the full article here)

The building's landlord, Joe Wang, said that the store’s closing had more to do with its limited hours: Thursday through Sunday only. And Tingle, a struggling small business owner herself, suggested that Dairy Air's closing likely was caused by high overhead and rent instead of a social media uproar over the logo, NorthJersey.com reported.

But that doesn’t mean Tortoriello has forgotten about the bitter words that people spoke about himself and his business.

"They were on a crusade to destroy my business and my life," Tortoriello told NorthJersey.com, adding that he now plans to retire. "I was totally berated and accused of being a woman-hater. It was nonstop harassment; it never ended."

Tortoriello said that even after the news stories dried up, people continued to send letters, write emails and get in his employees’ faces about the logo.

"It's not fair for a 15-year-old to get harassed by extremist radical liberal people,” he said, describing how his daughters are now “embarrassed” to go to school.

• See related article: Montclair Ice Cream Shop Responds To 'Sexy Cow' Controversy

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Photo: Dairy Air Ice Cream Co.