Just before I left for a client meeting today a breaking news item came across The Sun website. In this story by Don Markus I learned that the Iron Bridge Wine Company had been vandalized and that the perpetrators had left behind a message.
“Get rid of the foie gras’” was painted in red on the stone landing in front of the restaurant.
“Get rid of the foie gras’” was painted in red on the stone landing in front of the restaurant.
I had to go see this. After my meeting I stopped by and was lucky enough to catch Steve Wecker, one of the owners of the restaurant. Steve’s a great guy and he and his brother Rob run a pretty successful business that has also been generous in giving back to the community.
Steve invited me in for a glass of wine.
“It’s just a stinking duck,” he told me as we settled in at his bar. He lamented that it was sad with all of the other problems in the world today that people would waste their energy on this. “There’s nothing so dangerous it can’t be talked about.”
The restaurant suffered minimal damage. The vandals nicely lettered message is on the ground and can’t even been seen from the road. The windows that were broken are double paned and only one pane on each of the four windows was broken.
“We were open for lunch,” he told me.
He told they actually once took foie gras’ off the menu but so many customers complained that they bought it back.
He has no intention of taking it off again.
I understand that their job is to meet consumer demand and not be the dietary ethics police, but being dismissive about the cruel nature of foie gras is beyond ignorant and very classless. If foie gras was made from black lab instead of duck, would they be saying “It’s just a stinking black lab”?
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I am a vegetarian and I feel the same way about chickens, cows, etc.
People need to learn to keep their beliefs and politics to themselves and stop preaching and trying to force them onto others who just aren't interested and don't care.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I hope your comment was not target towards me. I am not trying to force anyone to do anything. The only thing I am trying to do is to provide a compelling enough reason to make someone who might want to purchase foie gras change their mind voluntarily. I don’t advocate forcing anyone to do anything, nor do I advocate vandalizing the private property of others.
ReplyDeleteCLERKS
ReplyDelete"Bunch of savages in this town."
-Randall Graves
Comments like "it's just a stinking duck" make me want to kick a small child and then say "it's just a stinking kid". Why aren't people outraged? To echo FM, people can leave their black labs chained to the porch in a cold rain without being slapped with a $25 fine. I say force feed them the disemboweled remains of small kittens and sell them as gourmet meals!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, get your head out of your arse and see cruelty- against all beings- for what it is.