How a New Jersey brewery unwittingly became the latest culture war battleground
Police barricades bookended South Broadway, the main thoroughfare of downtown Pitman, N.J, as parked police cars bathed the street in an eerie glow of flashing blue and red lights. Officers on duty stood around with arms folded, surveying the scene and instructing pedestrians where to walk. A crowd had gathered on the lawn of Ballard Park, so often the setting of food festivals and community events, across the way from a row of establishments – all shuttered except for one, the Human Village Brewing Company. What tragedy could have befallen this small leafy borough where not a single chain store is in sight, where children can safely bike around unsupervised, a place whose official slogan is ‘Everybody Likes Pitman?
