Donut shop owner speaks out after viral video sparks outrage

By Grace Smith

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    EUGENE, Oregon (KEZI) — A donut shop owner is now sharing his side of the story after a viral video sparked outrage.

The video was posted on Reddit Saturday, and the video shows that Dean Weaver, the owner of Dizzy Dean’s Donuts, threw water on a homeless woman outside his store. People online say the temperature on the night the video was taken was as cold as 40 degrees.

But Weaver told KEZI that’s not what happened, and that there’s more to the story than what the video shows.

“It’s not a matter of I threw water on someone; I would never do that. I just threw it on the fire to get it out,” Weaver said.

Weaver said he was inside his shop when he smelled a fire and heard crackling, so he said he grabbed a pitcher of water.

“I went out to extinguish the fire, and I saw someone sitting there, and I threw the pitcher of water on the fire. The fire was behind her; the video makes it look like I threw it on her, but I didn’t,” Weaver said.

The fire that Weaver claims was behind the woman is not easily visible in the video posted online, and many people online say the fire wasn’t there at all.

Weaver said this isn’t the first time he’s had to deal with people setting fires around his shop.

“There’s been probably six or seven fires total, right in this area. They are not big fires, but I don’t know where they are going with this, and I’m concerned about other fires that have been happening,” Weaver said.

He said each time this happens, he gets water to put the flames out. According to Weaver, this particular time wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“You haven’t heard of any of the other times, the reason being is that this one went viral because an ex-employee took the video and downloaded it so that he could post it,” Weaver said.

Weaver said the ex-employee was fired for other reasons and believes he posted the video without the full story to get revenge.

But the video has also caused one Springfield business with a similar name to get some unwanted calls. A worker at Bizzy Jean’s Donuts said ever since the video was posted; they’ve had floods of angry callers.

“Threats, harassing us through the phone; thinking that we are related. But we are not affiliated with Dizzy Dean’s Donuts. Please stop calling us,” said the worker.

As for Weaver, he hopes to move forward from this and keep serving up his donuts to the community as he’s done for the past 35 years.

“The reality is, I threw it on the fire, not on any person; it’s far too cold to do that,” Weaver said.

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