'Global warming is baloney' signs put the heat on Burger King

The Guardian ^ | 6/5/2009 | Leo Hickman

[markomalley]

A row between the fast food giant Burger King and one of its major franchise owners has erupted over roadside signs proclaiming "global warming is baloney".

The franchisee, a Memphis-based company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, has described Burger King as acting "kinda like cockroaches" over the controversy. MIC says it does not believe Burger King has the authority to make it take the signs down.

The dispute began to sizzle last week, when a local newspaper reporter in Memphis, Tennessee, noticed the signs outside two restaurants in the city and contacted the corporation to establish if the message represented its official viewpoint. Burger King's headquarters in Miami said it did not, adding that it had ordered MIC to take the signs down.

But a few days later readers of the Memphis paper said they had seen about a dozen Burger King restaurants across the state displaying the signs and that some had yet to be taken down. Media attempts to contact MIC to establish why it was taking an apparently defiant stance were rebuffed, but the Guardian managed to grill MIC's marketing president, John McNelis.

"I would think [Burger King] would run from any form of controversy kinda like cockroaches when the lights get turned on," said Mr McNelis. "I'm not aware of any direction that they gave the franchisee and I don't think they have the authority to do it."

McNelis added: "The [restaurant] management team can put the message up there if they want to. It is private property and here in the US we do have some rights.

[Erasmus]

As a Mel Brooks character once said “It’s good to be the King.”

[since1868]

This what we need more people like this.
If you can support this guy and let him know why!!

[rlmorel]

LOL! Great!

[eyedigress]

How dare you beat me to the punch!

[GOP Poet]

:-D. Thanks for the picture.

[TChris]

The roundup is nearly complete, watch for an uptick in the number of laid-off cowboys as we head out on the trail.

Resistance is futile...

Eventually, it will be fatal.

[Gordon Greene]

I think they’ll eventually cave.

In the meantime, I think I’ll exercise my freedom to eat a few dozen BK Chicken sandwiches this week and maybe a Whopper or two... from one of the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC)franchises, of course.

Somebody has got to fight this crap at some point. Obama has asked for Americans’ to sacrifice and his followers folded like a bad poker hand. If we’re not willing to take some losses in this battle we will definitely lose the war. I’m praying that MIC fights. It’s bigger than global warming.

[ozzymandus]

The global warming Nazis play for keeps, and they're always ready to attack any doubters. The brainwashed tree-huggers are getting nasty now that their hysteria has been widely debunked, and the public is realizing what frauds they are. One of the local columnists in the paper I (sometimes) read ran a two-part rant about how he knew global warming was real because a couple of eggheads told him so personally. Of course, he's still bashing Bush, so he's totally predictable, even though he considers himself a genius. (He's a retired high-school English teacher, so he thinks he's an expert on every subject, when he's actually just a knee-jerk leftie who spent his life and retirement on the taxpayer's dime.)

[divine_moment_of_facts]

[JudgemAll]

Many franhises make sex and gay related ads, and these never get media snitch time, nor do headquarters complain. Funny how Burger King would not stop a PLO franchise.