A couple People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ activists protested outside a seafood restaurant in Bar Harbor, Maine, but some passersby thought the protest was actually a restaurant promotion.
PETA’s Karin Robertson and Kelsey Gibb demonstrated across the street from the Parkside Restaurant, which features six or seven lobster dishes according to its manager, James Costello.
Gibb dressed up in a lobster costume, while Robertson handed out fliers. But some folks were confused about the protest. One passerby, Jeff Brent, told The Bangor Daily News,
It’s a little over the top. I thought it was an advertisement for the lobster house across the street.
Brent added that the protest would have made a bit more sense if the lobster had been standing in a pot.
Robertson told the newspaper she was satisfied with the response,
I think we’ve had a good response from people. Most people wouldn’t consider boiling any other animal alive. . . . Hopefully, they’ll leave them in the ocean instead of throwing them in to a pot.
Robertson and Gibb protested at a number of lobster restaurants in the northeast, but oddly enough seems to be shying away from its “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” tactics. According to Robertson, PETA decided not to protest at the Main Lobster Festival in Rockland. Robertson told the Bangor Daily News,
We’ve gone to the lobster festival in the past. We don’t really need to draw attention to a festival that promotes cruelty to animals.
PETA passing an a publicity opportunity? Please, say it ain’t so.
Source:
PETA activists protest in lobster-eating mecca. Bangor Daily News, August 10, 2005.