BOISE, Idaho — Jim Sheehan, the owner of a coffee shop in Driggs, has found himself at the center of a firestorm over access to abortion in Idaho.

After Sheehan, who owns Wydaho Roasters, was filmed in mid-August telling members of an anti-abortion rights group not to hold a meeting in his cafe, he has found himself the subject of national news stories and columns. He and his wife have been doxxed, and his business received so many angry calls — even death threats — that staff turned off the phones, he told the Idaho Statesman.

At the same time, Sheehan said, “business has just exploded.” Sales the weekend after the incident more than doubled the cafe’s previous record.

“I can’t get anything done because everyone wants to keep giving us hugs. People are reaching out from across the country and ordering stuff,” he said. “I’ve got so much stuff I still have to mail out that I can’t keep up.”

It all started with a Facebook post by members of Students for Life of America, a group that opposes abortion rights, advertising that it would hold an Aug. 17 meeting at Wydaho Roasters to discuss efforts surrounding Proposition 1, a 2026 ballot initiative in Idaho that seeks to increase access to abortion.

Sheehan, who supports Prop 1, also called the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, responded to the Facebook post in a comment, asking the group to hold its event elsewhere. He said he didn’t give the topic much more thought after that.

But the next day, he said, he looked up from grinding coffee to see that the meeting was taking place anyway. He confronted the group, reiterating that he didn’t want them meeting in his shop. An event in the cafe, he reasoned, would give the appearance of support from the business and its owners, and he strongly opposed this group’s efforts.

In a confrontation the activists filmed, they pressed Sheehan on what they saw as hypocrisy. His shop advertises its desire to be inclusive, flying an LGBTQ+ Pride flag and displaying a sign that reads, “Everyone is Welcome Here.” And yet he seemed to be saying that “anyone who’s a Christian or who is pro-life” was not actually welcome, Kristan Hawkins, the group’s president, told Fox News.

Hawkins did not respond to the Statesman’s requests for an interview.

But Sheehan said the activists took his words out of context. He has no problem serving those with different beliefs, he said.

“I stand at the counter all day long and serve people I’m pretty sure I would not agree with on a lot of things. Usually, I can tell if they’re wearing MAGA hats,” he said, referring to President Donald Trump’s supporters.

The problem, for him, was the idea of a more formal event being advertised and occurring at the cafe without his consent, for a cause that he and his wife, the co-owner, don’t support.

“The sole purpose of bringing this group together was to talk about how to defeat Prop 1,” he said. “People could be talking about that all day long at tables. I don’t know, I don’t really care. But don’t publicize it in a public forum that this is happening at Wydaho.”

As the confrontation with the activists escalated, he compared them with the Ku Klux Klan — another group whose events he would refuse to host at his cafe, he said. The comment drew gasps in the background of the video Hawkins filmed, and has been the focus of much of the national attention Wydaho has received.

Does Sheehan regret the comparison?

“It was probably a poor analogy,” he told the Statesman, though he stands by the idea that the KKK and anti-abortion activists are both groups with which he disagrees.

“I don’t believe in racism. I don’t believe in taking away women’s bodily autonomy. There’s certain issues to me that are not gray; it’s black and white,” he said. “I have to stand on one side of that issue, and I would not support the other side in my place of business.”

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