CALLICOON, NY – The online harassment that has shown up elsewhere has made it to Callicoon.

Anonymous trolls accused Krissy Smith, owner of the Callicoon Theatre, of fighting a Callicoon Business Association initiative to hang American flags in Callicoon for the Fourth of July.

“It’s not true,” she said. But “I didn’t want to engage.”

The situation has snowballed, though, and both Smith and Nicole Vailance Orbach, president of the Callicoon Business Association, have issued statements emphasizing support for the flags. And as far as the theatre goes, Orbach wrote, “It is unfair that they are getting blamed for this rumor as there is no truth to it.”

Smith pointed to records from two recent meetings, showing that she never questioned the flags. At a Town of Delaware meeting recently, she had only asked about parking spaces for the Depot project. At the business association last week, she emphasized that she supported the flags. 

She talked about how welcome she has felt in Callicoon. About how people reached out during lockdown, asking how they could help support the theatre, a landmark since the late 1940s. Smith knows that a few trolls aren’t symbolic of the whole town. If people want to know more, they should just ask her, she said.

“A lot of people came to me and asked me directly” about what happened and about her feelings about the flags. “I really appreciated that.”