Ice Cream Costume Mistaken for KKK Robe in Florida

Classic mix-up.

Daniel Aviles works for Ice Cream Family Corner & Sandwiches in Ocala, Florida, luring motorists in from a busy intersection dressed in a white-hooded ice cream cone costume. The owners tell Ocala.com that their two-month-old business "is getting creamed" because passers-by have mistaken Aviles for a KKK protester:

"Liza Diaz, who manages the store for Cantres and co-owner Jesus Diaz, said an employee at the bank where she does business told her a co-worker was so frightened by the white dollop patrolling the street corner that she called her husband crying and refused to drive through the intersection.

'One (customer) told me, ‘I had to think twice before coming in here because I thought it was KKK,' ' Diaz said."

The store manager is from Puerto Rico and never even heard of the KKK before the controversy, mispronouncing the group as the "Ku Ku Klan" according to Ocala.com.

The owners have remedied the situation by putting the costume in the closet for good. Though the ordeal has cost them business, the owners are trying to make light of the situation.

"We're a friendly environment, family-oriented," Liza Diaz told Ocala.com "We're not (racist). We're very friendly, very religious."

(H/T: Gawker)