Would you like fries with that gun? Firearms and foodservice don't mix

Nation's Restaurant News, April 22, 1996

Of all the "value menus" and price wars abounding in the quick-service segment today, perhaps no combination meal carried a rebate as unusual as that of a coupon in an urban Baltimore unit of Burger King offering discounts off guns and ammunition.

In a city where the number of adult and juvenile murders rose 24 percent last year, and the incidents of shootings surpassed 1,200, mixing and matching Whoppers, fries and soft drinks with reduced offers for 9 mm shells or a 12-gauge shotgun hardly could be perceived as sound business strategy. But that's exactly what customers at this franchised Burger King received on the back of their register tape receipt with each purchase.

For nearly one week the controversial ad coupon from S&W Sports shop in neighboring Catonsville offered "one free box of ammunition with the purchase of a gun, or 10 percent off."

When a reporter from the Baltimore Sun informed Burger King's corporate office in Miami of this unique value offer from one of its licensees, the company ordered the owner to replace the register tapes in an office supply store. In a statement Burger King Corp. explained that the franchisee was unaware that the tape included a coupon for ammunition because prior register receipts of the restaurant had carried more generic ads for S&W before the controversial campaign.

"We do not believe it is appropriate for any of the restaurants, either company or franchise owned, to allow advertisements regarding the firearm industry in the restaurants," Burger King Corp. said.

The ads so angered the Baltimore constabulary that the head of the Baltimore police union urged his fellow officers to boycott the restaurant. What was most unsettling about the incident was that it ignored the exploding numbers of violent crimes that have had an impact on the restaurant industry in recent years. The most recent figures available from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a division of the U.S. Justice Department, show that some 125,000 reported cases of attempted armed robbery occurred in retail establishments just two years ago.

According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, workplace homicides claim 15 lives each week in the United States, while homicide was the most prevalent cause of death among restaurant employee fatalities -- accounting for nearly 75 percent of all restaurant workplace deaths.

Over the past several years, crime and violence in the retail arena have moved into the national spotlight, where incidents such as the 1993 execution-style murder of seven people at a Brown's Chicken and Pasta in Palatine, Ill., brought the shocking specter of violent crime from dark alleys to dining rooms and kitchens.

Tim Watson, the owner of S&W, who claims to have spent some $14,000 on advertising his store at the Burger King unit and on cable television, has threatened a lawsuit. He claims that he is targeting sports enthusiasts, not criminals, with his ads.

Fair enough.

And surely no one disputes that Watson is entitled legally to a refund if an advertising contract with the restaurant was not fulfilled. The Burger King licensee should return Watson's money and then direct him toward better-suited advertising forums for his product line, such as the magazine Guns and Ammo or similar publications.

Watson may be justified in his claim of not directly targeting criminals, but consider this scenario: What if some less-than-upstanding Burger King customer decided to avail himself of the firearm discount and promptly used the savings to commit a felony -- or, irony of ironies, rob the Burger King unit?

It should be duly noted that the Baltimore/Washington D.C. professional basketball entry, the Washington Bullets, is contemplating seriously a nickname change in an effort to rid itself of the violent connotation of the word "bullets."

Curbing violent crime in our nation's cities is already a Herculean task without questionable advertising. If a restaurant wants and allows advertising on places such as its register tape, how about a generic public-service announcement or a job recruitment advertisement?