A downtown St. Paul bar and comedy club has canceled six sold-out performances from a comic who went viral after posting jokes about Renee Good, who was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

Bill Collins, who owns Camp Bar and Laugh Camp comedy club, said it’s a safety issue, both for the performer and the audience. Soon after comic Ben Bankas posted the jokes, Collins started to hear threats of a boycott and picketing outside the venue in protest. “I’ve never had anything happen like this before,” he said.

Collins said Bankas’ management company, CAA, told him that if he doesn’t pay Bankas, CAA won’t book any comics at the venue in the future.

“They keep saying that there’s a contract and that they don’t see any evidence that there’s a force majeure situation and their position is that the comedian is ready and willing to perform and that they need to be paid in full,” Collins said.

Representatives for Bankas did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Collins said the bar stands to lose “somewhere in the neighborhood of $18,000.” The six shows scheduled Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the 150-capacity club were completely sold out.

The clip comes from a Bankas show in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., just days after Good’s death.

“Now for a moment of silence for Renee Good. Really hope that dog’s OK … and her pet,” Bankas said in reference to Good’s wife. “Her last name was Good. That’s what I said after they shot her in the face.”

Bankas goes on to call Good a “dumb, retarded lesbian” who “should have been shot 10 minutes before.”

Patrick Strait, author of the book “Funny Thing About Minnesota…: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Twin Cities Comedy Scene,” said Bankas is the type of comedian who is shocking, crude and wants to push buttons. “It seems to me he likes the argument. He likes the confrontation. He likes making people uncomfortable. In my opinion, it’s offensive and it’s extremely unnecessarily vulgar. But I guess there are people who like it, because that is super popular right now.”

Last year, several venues in Canada canceled performances from Toronto native Bankas after he made “crude and offensive” jokes about Indigenous people.

Collins questioned Bankas and his management for not backing down. “Maybe (Bankas) doesn’t know. He’s on the road, maybe he’s not paying close attention to what’s happening. I don’t understand how they think it’s a good idea to send this guy into this city right now. I don’t know how getting in and out of the venue would work for him and if the people coming to see him are going to have to go through crowds of protesters. The risk of something happening is just way, way too great. And it’s just mind boggling to me that they don’t see that.”

Collins compared the possible situation to conservative influencer Jake Lang, who was beaten by several counter-protesters at his “March Against Minnesota Fraud” protest he staged earlier this month at Minneapolis City Hall.

“He had the National Guard and Minneapolis police all around him and it didn’t work out real well for him,” Collins said. “I don’t know how you could look at that and think this is safe for him.

“It’s just upsetting, but we’re doing the right thing and we’ve got to make sure that everybody is safe. We’ll just have to deal with the consequences.”

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