Foie Gras Less Important Than Our Community!
As you are no doubt aware, The Bridge Inn has faced an assault by so called Animal Activists since the 16th March because of one Foie Gras Pincho on our menu.
The Bridge Inn has received over 200 fake 1* reviews on Facebook, the owners, team and supportive guests have been abused online and 4 protests have taken place.
Despite the fact that we have never initiated contact with any journalist our little pub has found it’s way into the Times, The Telegraph, bizarrely even into coverage by Fox News in the U.S. and most recently even The Daily Mail.
Samantha has been likened to London Terrorists and told by the protestors that they hope she dies of cancer.
My Sister in Law has been abused often waking to up to 80 disparaging and abusive messages on her Facebook while my brother has had water poured over his head while sweeping away their pavement Graffiti.
Our guests have been trolled online, pictures of their Children shared on activist web sites and one called a murderer – with no protection available under the law
The old saying goes… “there is no such thing as bad publicity” and yes sales have risen especially on the days the protesters have shown up at our door and Foie Gras sales have risen by 134% but the price for the people we care about isn’t worth our principals, any amount of media coverage or sales.
The most recent protest on Sunday just gone, proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Sales growth, media coverage and our determination clearly only served to make the protestors step over the line. Peaceful protest what a joke! Always video cameras on, they abused and pushed every boundary further and further and trawled new depths in their struggle for their victory.
Finally just before the protestors set off home, one regular guest arrived inside the pub visibly shaken and shaking after enduring a torrent of intimidating abuse by a group of these so called animal welfare activists surrounding him and shouting in his face. The assault was sufficiently traumatic for him to call the police.
Our community comes first for us and we cannot allow such abuse to continue. Guests visiting The Bridge Inn come to escape the madness and should not be faced with a different form of lunacy outside the door of their favourite local.
We made the gut wrenching decision to set aside our principals because we care for our community of guests, team and family. They can have their pyrrhic victory. Foie Gras will not be on the new menu which will be launched towards the end of the month. We just realised that we cannot and will not put our principals before our guests experience at The Bridge and while I may be able to control the temptation to react, I do worry that their escalating attempts to intimidate and abuse will lead to the flash point they and their video cameras crave. Someone will get hurt and someone will be arrested and it will not be one of these practiced “peaceful” protestors.
Our guests like us feel that it is it is a very sad state of affairs that the law does nothing to support a sympathetic but stretched Police force in dealing with these bullies. The government should do more to protect law abiding citizens going about their own business from intimidation and abuse.
We remain of the opinion that the activists dated views of Foie Gras production are wrong and it became clear on Sunday that they didn’t even know that the single caging depicted in their placards were outlawed across Europe in 2012.
There are many bigger issues in this world that their passion could be so much better directed towards and their methods do not encourage sensible well mannered intelligent people to join their crusade.
What the activists will perceive as a victory, where the end justified the means, has in fact done more damage to their cause than they can imagine. There are many issues in animal welfare which our guests identify with and would support but supporting the Animal Rights movement now, will be as likely as a social liberal endorsing a coalition with the recidivist DUP in Ireland.
The activists will crow victory, so be it. Our family, team & guests come first and we can only hope these despicable people take a long hard look at the press coverage and opinions they have heard from our guests and think twice before adopting these deplorable bullying tactics with some other poor unsuspecting community. Their methods are disgusting and we have to accept that we cannot win unless we are willing to stoop to their depths. This is something we are not prepared to do.
So please note “activists” the Foie Gras is coming off the menu, you have your pyrrhic victory, so now leave our community alone. Enough is enough!
tangentwithtanner
amandla
vaporwave
ellievsbear
romaincrisis