The owner of a business that recently received attention for a controversial sign that hung in its door is defending himself against accusations that he's a racist.

"It's amazing how what you say is twisted so much," Louis Pizzolatto said on Thursday's edition of the Moon Griffon Show. "I'm actually a supporter of the Asian population (and) the Pacific Island population, and it turned into I was anti-Asian because of a sign that said I was anti-Chinese Communist."

The sign, which went viral on social media, read, "Coin and Treasure proudly refuses admittance to any Chinese Communist mofo."

Pizzolatto said the sign hung on his door for about a year. He says he was inspired to post the sign after a conversation he had with a man in a taxi cab while on his way to board a cruise ship.

"About a year ago, we went on a cruise, and I was told a story by a gentleman about how bad this virus was," Pizzolatto told Griffon. "There was no lockdowns. We had heard about the virus coming here. It's not contagious between humans. (The other man) happened to live next to a doctor . . . that wanted to go with the viral with the news about this virus. What ended up happening was this doctor just happened to disappear, never to be heard from again, and dead from wanting to go viral. I took it with a grain of salt. We get back, and the situation exploded. I figured they swept this under the rug. It's all over the world, and they tried to cover it up. So I figured I would put the sign up."

Pizzolatto said he had no complaints about the sign until this week. In fact, he says the response to the sign had been mostly positive.

"The reaction started with a situation where it really came out of left field with two phone calls, and both of them were threatening and insulting where you could give no explanation, and they immediately hung up," Pizzolatto told Griffon. "Naturally, you check where they came from, and one came from Austin, Texas. The other came from Berkeley, California.

"The next day is when I'd say it went nuts," Pizzolatto continued. "I probably got between 150 to 200 phone calls back to back to back to back. A lot of them became local--or should I say--regional phone calls. It always came down to the same thing: Why do you hate Asians?"

Pizzolatto said he engaged in a dialogue with some of the callers and was able to convince them that their perspective was skewed.

"There was actually a handful of people once we got past the morning threats and death threats where if you could keep them on the phone and tell them to look (the sign) up and read what it said, it's amazing how many of those people said, 'I wanted to pull your head off,' said, 'I support 99.9 percent of what you said,'" Pizzolatto told Griffon.

Pizzolatto says the negative phone calls have slowly given way to calls of support.

"After some 36 hours of hell, the last 12 hours have been great," Pizzolatto said. "Friends, people that I didn't know, (and) Asian people (have been) calling me (and) telling me, 'I am from China. I know what you're saying.' They've been through hell. Vietnamese people who have been through it with China (have been calling). They've been through hell."

Pizzolatto reiterated that the sign was meant to show his displeasure with the Chinese Communist Party and does not reflect any racist beliefs.

"The thing about Asian-Americans is that they weren't even mentioned, and I'm very supportive of the Asian culture in our area and around the world," Pizzolatto said. "I am anti-Chinese Communist. I am pro-Asian. I'm pro Pacific Islanders. I'm pro-Chinese. I'm not pro-Chinese Community Party. Most of all, I'm pro-American."

Today's interview expanded upon the same topics Pizzolatto discussed in an interview with the Advocate and other news outlets earlier this week.

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