Summit Coffee NoDa Staff Suspects Hate Driving Vandalism Incidents
Pride flag continuously ripped from storefront, could be investigated as hate crime
Management and staff at Summit Coffee in NoDa say the coffee shop has been targeted by vandals who have repeatedly torn down and in at least one case defaced an LGBTQ+ pride flag that waves in front of the storefront.
Alexis Oliva, manager of the NoDa location for the Davidson-based chain, told Queen City Nerve the coffee shop offers a safe space for all walks of life, having hung a pride flag outside of the store year-round since the location’s 2020 opening.
The first incident occurred in August 2024 during Charlotte Pride weekend, when the flag was stolen. A year later — also during Charlotte Pride — the flag was taken down again, this time ripped up and scattered across the rooftop patio of neighboring business The Chamber by Wooden Robot, an act that Oliva called “extremely unnerving.”
That incident made Summit staff uncomfortable enough to put off re-hanging the flag for another two months, Oliva said. On Sept. 30, the team bought and hung another flag, accompanied by an affirming video posted to the shop’s Instagram page.
“We hang our flag loud & proud because love is the reason for the season,” the post read. “Need a safe space? Don’t worry, come as you are, we wouldn’t want anything less … PSA we never take our flag down but we will continue to fly this flag high as long as we are serving coffee in the NoDa community!!”
Not even a week later, sometime on the first weekend of October, the flag was again ripped down from its place in front of the shop.
”Honestly, we are so fed up and feel defeated yet anxious because this is now feeling like a very targeted hate crime,” Oliva said. “Several baristas that work at my shop have expressed concern as I feel the same and this is not fair as we are all women under the age of 27, most being queer.”
Oliva filed a police report on Tuesday to document each act and, though she’s currently waiting for someone at the department to be assigned to the case, the person she spoke with did tell her it could be investigated as a hate crime thanks to the malicious act of vandalism carried out in August of this year.
She said that, while Summit does not have outside surveillance, the neighboring Novant Health office does. Investigators will need to subpoena that footage to see if it helps identify the suspects or at least find out whether the same people are responsible for the separate incidents.
“I just feel like the world needs to see how secretly and bold hateful people are even in a very progressive city as CLT,” she wrote in an email.
