Burgermen bow to ‘needle’ points

NEWS

The owners of two burger outlets who had planned to letterbox 20,000 promotional pens that resemble a blood-filled drug syringe have abandoned the idea in the face of growing criticism.

Burger Urge has outlets in New Farm and West End, and co-owner Sean Carthew has advised a shelter close to the New Farm store that helps recovering drug addicts that the pens would now only be handed out to customers who asked for them instore. The promotion gimmick received bad publicity in the mainstream media, and got a far-from favourable mention in a recent screening of popular ABC TV marketing analysis show, Gruen Planet.
The pens, with the words “taste addiction” on them, aim to promote the mini chain’s new menu that features the likes of “lamb phetamine”, “beef injection” and “chick fix”.
139 Club general manager Rod Kelly, a reformed intravenous drug user, had fought hard against the promotion, calling on the community to stop this “irresponsible business owner from placing our children in imminent danger of drugs, addiction and dirty needles”.
In an electronic email sent out earlier this month seeking petition signatures, Mr Kelly wrote: “These syringe pens will find their way to your homes; your children’s pencil cases, your child’s mouths and your children’s school playgrounds. Your children will become desensitised to holding and playing with needles (remember the old fag lolly we all pretended to smoke). Next time they see a dirty needle in a park or on the street they will mistake it for a pen and play with it, put it in their little mouths and guess what? Catch hepatitis C or worse!”
But in an email to Mr Kelly last week Mr Carthew said the plan to letterbox the pens in late October had been scrapped after a series of talks with the club.
“We will continue to use the pens in our store promotions but this will be in a controlled manner and there will be guidelines placed on how they are distributed. Customers will need to request a pen if they are to receive one and they will not be distributed to minors,” he wrote.
“These measures [will ensure] that people do not receive the pen unless they first request one. Secondly, they will not be distributed to children or minors or any other person that may be adversely or detrimentally affected.”
Mr Kelly said Burger Urge was demonstrating community responsibility and a community conscience by allowing adults/parents to determine whether the pen has a place in their home.
“This new promotional direction will also protect the rehabilitated drug user, by giving them a choice, whether or not to come in contact with this trigger-inducing syringe pen.” The 139 Club praised Burger Urge “for the way they have listened and responded to the protest from the community and taken action to ensure that the health, safety and wellbeing of our community is as much of a priority as is, their desire to increase their business”.
In his email to the club, Mr Carthew wrote: “We never honestly thought that a biro-pen resembling a syringe would be of detriment to recovering drug addicts and we never expected parents of children to take issue with it. Syringes are used for a myriad of medical reasons other than to shoot up illegal drugs and we didn’t think that children would be detrimentally affected by receiving them. Everyone we spoke to responded well to the promotion and we didn’t receive any objections from our sample audience or existing customer base.
“Notwithstanding, we have taken on board your concerns and the concerns of others put forward in the past two weeks. While we personally don’t have any problem with the pens, we have never been intravenous drug users so we can never claim to see things from your perspective.
"We accept that the pen may offend some people in the community and we would like to reiterate our intent was never to offend or advocate drug use in any way.”