Ben Shapiro has resumed filming on his pro-ICE Daily Wire film “Pawn Shop” after city officials held a hearing over the weekend amidst protests and claims that the production had violated permitting requirements.
The production in Livingstone, Mont., drew outrage from local residents who claimed they were not informed that simulated gunfire would be used during the film’s on-location shoots, while the town’s food bank released a statement claiming that they were not notified of the shoot and have seen a decrease in visits from those in need due to street closures and armed security presence brought by the “Pawn Shop” shoot.
Producers for “Pawn Shop” spoke at a public hearing after their film permit was temporarily suspended, asserting that they “canvassed the blocks” on which they would film and posted the appropriate notices. Local news station KTVQ said that an estimated 150 residents attended the hearing, though public comment was restricted to only discussing claims about permit compliance.
In a statement to media, Shapiro accused Livingstone officials of violating his First Amendment rights by pausing the shoot.
“Let us be clear: there’s only one reason the city commissioners ruled they were going to stop our production on the street: politics, pure and simple, and they pretty much admitted it,” Shapiro said in statement. “One commissioner named Cindy Daniels said, quote, ‘I’m not willing to sacrifice the resources of the safety, the security of the mental health of our community. Absolutely not. This wasn’t a Hallmark film. This wasn’t, you know, Christmastime in Livingston, and it wasn’t a romantic story.’ Well, I mean, I wasn’t aware that we had to fulfill your idea of what the story required.”
“In fact, I’m fairly certain the First Amendment says precisely the opposite of that. So they’re saying a Hallmark romance would have been totally fine. But a Daily Wire film about enforcement of immigration law loses that. That is content discrimination openly performed and a violation of the First Amendment,” he continued.
The logline for “Pawn Shop” reads: “When a Minneapolis riot forces a young ICE officer to complete a high-stakes arrest alone after his partner is killed, he is hunted through the streets by a furious mob intent on freeing the prisoner and punishing anyone who still upholds the law. Barricaded inside a neighborhood pawn shop with a hard-edged Hispanic veteran and the man’s progressive college-age grandson, ordinary men must choose between the rule of law and the chaos that wants to burn it all down in a modern siege of honor and defiance.”
