Online discussion continued Monday over whether RBC Bluesfest should have turned away a man who wore shorts with the Confederate flag to the festival last week.

The activist group Black Lives Matter Ottawa have created an online petition calling for the festival organizers to issue an apology. The petition had 29 signatures by 5 p.m. on Monday.

Staff at Bluesfest had Monday off, but organizer Joe Reilly said the organization is aware of the petition and still in discussions about the issue.

“The appropriate clothing policy is currently under review,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge to come up with specific guidelines for this issue.”

Reilly said that the man in the photo is not associated with Bluesfest and was not in possession of an accredited media pass.

Robert Rusaw, the American identified in the photo, did not respond to a request for comment, but did post a public message on his Facebook page Sunday evening.

“Some people were offended that I wore shorts with the confederate flag on it, well too bad,” he wrote. “The flag is a symbol and it has more than one meaning to people.”

Rusaw continued to say that Kanye West has adopted the flag in his merchandise and that Canadians should be concerned with the recent truth and reconciliation report.

Southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd is playing the festival Tuesday night, and in the past has used the Confederate or “Dixie” flag heavily in their branding.

In 2012, the band said they were distancing themselves from the flag because of its racial connotations.