Marie Laskowsky (left) and Elissa McGinty hold up signs protesting Hillers Pizza on the sidewalk in front of 77 West Main Street.

On June 13, Petros “Peter” Sismanis, owner of Hillers Pizza was convicted of indecent assault and battery and two counts of witness intimidation.

The following week, there were protestors outside the restaurant at 77 West Main Street.

A small group spent most of the past week outside the plaza on the sidewalk, holding signs with slogans calling for a boycott of Hillers Pizza and repeatedly referring to the restaurant’s founder as a sexual predator.

Elissa McGinty and Marie Laskowsky are the pair responsible for the protest. They have been showing up alongside their daughters to picket the business. Their hope is to encourage people to stop patronizing the restaurant.

“If we don’t make people aware, then people will continue to buy from him,” said Laskowsky.

For the two women, this type of community action is new territory.

“We’ve never protested a thing in our lives,” said Laskowsky.

“We can’t not do it in good conscience,” added McGinty.

Sismanis received a six-month prison sentence after a conviction June 12 for indecent assault and battery after grabbing and kissing an underage employee in the basement of 77 West Main Street back in January 2023. He also was charged for witness intimidation after preventing the victim and her mother from leaving the parking lot the night of the incident.

McGinty and Laskowsky told the Independent that they began following the case in November 2024. After the jury reached a verdict and Sismanis was sentenced, they assumed the business would close. But after seeing it remain open, they felt compelled to action.

A curious aspect of the pair’s protest is the fact that neither woman lives in Hopkinton. Laskowsky is an Ashland resident, and McGinty lives in Medway.

Laskowsky explained her position on the matter, saying she did not believe the separation of a town line meant a full separation of community. The pair also discussed how, until last year, they had been volunteers for a Hopkinton organization. As a result, they regularly came into town and were in community with Hopkinton residents.

McGinty and Laskowsky raised concerns that local organizations continue to patronize the restaurant.

“We couldn’t figure out why … nobody cared to do anything,” said McGinty.

The protestors’ concerns about the business remaining in operation are not shared by everyone.

“What do you expect [the family] to do?” Paul Mastroianni, the owner of the mall at 77 West Main Street, asked during an interview with the Independent.

“The family, the wife and two daughters, they’re completely innocent,” he continued. “They don’t deserve to suffer any more than they are.”

Mastroianni said there are “years left” on the lease for Hillers Pizza. While he could not speak to what the family would do once the lease expired, he asserted that the family had a legal right to operate its business in the meantime.

As well, he claimed that Sismanis had nothing more to do with the business. According to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ corporate database, however, Sismanis still is listed as president, treasurer, secretary and director of Hillers Pizza, Inc. The Independent was unable to confirm whether the filing was out of date, and an individual who answered the phone at the restaurant declined a request for comment.

When asked about the arrival of protestors outside the business, Mastroianni was direct with his thoughts.

“All they’re doing is hurting a family that’s already suffered,” he said.

He banned the women from any of the businesses at the mall, although he was clear to affirm their right to express themselves.

“They have a right to say whatever they say,” stated Mastroianni.

“At the end of the day, I don’t want anyone picketing, disrupting or harassing the tenants,” he added.

McGinty and Laskowsky did not share Mastroianni’s position on the matter. “There’s no separation,” said Laskowsky. “They are a family, and he is a beneficiary of purchasing there.”

Laskowsky also argued that the concern needed to be focused more on the victim in this case, hoping to “make sure the victim is heard and seen.”

Added Laskowsky: “We will gladly go home if [the landlord] evicts him.”

Although their operation remains unorganized, both women said they have received support from the community. They recalled stories of passersby coming to stand with them and sharing their own experiences. 

Those personal experiences of dealing with assault and sexual violence hit home for Laskowsky, who said she is a survivor herself. She shared with the Independent that she lived through a situation similar to the victim’s, where a person in a position of authority took advantage of her when she was younger. 

She recounted feeling grief over the situation because the abuser continued to prey on other girls after her. As well, she expressed anger over the adults who neglected to intervene in that circumstance.

“Adults walked by and knew it was happening, just like they’re walking by and letting it happen now,” she said.

Laskowsky and McGinty have resolved to protest to make up for that silence. They also said they are doing this for their daughters, who are about the same age the victim was when the crime occurred.

“We want to make sure our girls know this is important,” Laskowsky explained.

The duration of their protest remains to be seen. McGinty said the pair were open to “many avenues” to get their point across.

“We’re committed and persistent people,” she said.

Whether the Select Board, which controls the administration of common victualer licenses in town, would take any action remains to be seen. When asked about the possibility of Sismanis’ license being revoked, Select Board chair Joe Clark indicated there was a “question out to counsel about this” and deferred commenting until he had an answer.

The Independent reached out to town counsel Bryan Bertram as well but did not receive a response.

One former town official did provide his thoughts on the matter. Brendan Tedstone, a former Select Board chair, had a history of voting against renewing Hillers Pizza’s victualer license when he was a board member.

This is because Sismanis pleaded out to an indecent assault and battery charge in 1998 after being accused of fondling a 19-year-old employee of his former business, Jelly Doughnuts. Sismanis was put on the sex offender registry as a result of that case.

“The crimes he has been convicted of are very serious,” Tedstone commented to the Independent on June 17. “Although the sentence is shorter that I would have expected, it’s my hope that the safeguards with the checks and balances being put forth eliminate this from ever happening again with him. My thoughts are with the victim and her family that they can put this behind them and that they know that behaviors like that cannot and will not be tolerated in our town. Hats off to the Hopkinton Police for getting the investigation right and earning a hard fought conviction.”