Seattle Ice Cream Owner Faces Backlash Over Perceived Hypocrisy After Supporting ‘Autonomous Zone,’ Banning Cops, Then Suing City and Opposing Crisis Center
SEATTLE, WA – The owner of a prominent Seattle ice cream chain, Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream, is drawing sharp criticism and accusations of hypocrisy following a series of actions that appear to contradict her past stances, particularly concerning public safety and the Capitol Hill neighborhood where one of her shops is located.
Molly Moon Nitel, founder of Molly Moon’s, recently spoke out against a proposed 24/7 mental health and substance abuse crisis care center planned for Capitol Hill. The center is slated for the polyclinic building at 1145 Broadway and is part of a larger initiative funded by a $1.25 billion levy approved by voters in 2023. While Nitel reportedly acknowledged the need for such services, she argued that Capitol Hill is the “wrong location,” stating that businesses there are “struggling” and residents are “unsafe”. She described the neighborhood as being in “absolute dire crisis for the last 5 to six, seven years”.
However, critics and attendees at a recent community meeting hosted at Seattle University have highlighted a stark contrast between Nitel’s current concerns about safety and her past actions and rhetoric.
In the summer of 2020, during nationwide Black Lives Matter protests and the George Floyd riots in Seattle, Capitol Hill became the site of the self-declared Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), later renamed Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP). This area, surrounding Cal Anderson Park, was established after Seattle police abandoned their East Precinct building. The occupation period was characterized by sources as having “rampant lawlessness, vandalism, fatal events,” including the deaths of two teenagers.
At that time, Molly Moon’s and Nitel were outspoken supporters of the movement and CHAZ. The shop closed to participate in a BLM March of Silence. They later posted on social media that they would close early due to safety concerns before eventually putting up signs banning armed police officers from entering the store, declaring it a “weapon-free zone”. Nitel was quoted as saying she was “anti the current police system” and believed “major reform” was needed, claiming her employees felt intimidated by officers returning to the neighborhood after CHOP.
This past support for events that, according to some residents, contributed to the neighborhood’s current problems makes Nitel’s opposition to the crisis center on safety grounds appear deeply ironic.
Adding another layer to the perceived contradiction, Molly Moon’s sued the city of Seattle in 2023 for damages and losses suffered during the CHOP occupation. In a federal lawsuit, the company accused the city of “effectively authorizing a hostile occupation”. The lawsuit reportedly painted a picture of an unsafe environment with “black roadways armed occupiers and emergency service failures” – conditions described as nearly identical to those Nitel now cites in her argument against the crisis care center. This lawsuit occurred despite Nitel’s reported past support for the movement and occupation.
Many residents and critics feel that Nitel’s current complaints about Capitol Hill’s instability and economic distress stem directly from the period of occupation she supported. One resident was quoted as saying, “You can’t burn the house and then burn down the house and then complain about the smoke,” highlighting the perceived inconsistency.
Police data indicates that Capitol Hill saw a 10% increase in crime during the first four months of 2025, a trend that sources note bucks the citywide and national pattern of declining crime.
The situation has drawn significant online commentary, with many criticizing the owner’s decisions and highlighting the apparent hypocrisy. Some comments characterize the actions as typical of a “woke business owner” and part of a “woke mind virus,” while others question the business acumen of supporting a movement that destabilized the area and then suing over the consequences. The lawsuit is reported to have failed.
