• pink taco abuses animals. tell them how you feel!

    86
    May 5th, 2011quarrygirlrants

    i’m writing this post so that it’s documented here on the blog forever. today pink taco in los angeles abused an animal to “celebrate” cinco de mayo, and since then they’ve deleted both their twitter and facebook accounts due to (much deserved) outrage. they chained up a poor defenseless donkey outside their tacky-ass restaurant, spray painted the animal pink, and branded it with their logo. sick, sick, sick shit.

    photo of a poor donkey at pink taco by @bendecker on twitter

    this photo came to my attention thanks to outspoken animal rights advocate michelle cho (SERIOUSLY follow her on twitter @chomatic if you care about animals). cho is always the first person to tweet about animal injustice, so when she posted about pink taco chaining up a live painted donkey, i was furious. moments later she posted the above pic taken by @bendecker, and i almost started crying. i mean, just look at that donkey—chained up and covered in gross paint in 80 degree weather!

    thankfully people took to twitter and facebook to speak their minds…and pink taco has now deleted both their twitter and facebook profile! calls to the restaurant produce the response, “the donkey isn’t outside anymore! we got so many calls, we took it away!”

    well done. if you care about animals, DON’T EAT AT PINK TACO. this situation is just horrendous. and apparently, this is not the first time.

    since pink taco has deleted their social media presence, we can’t really harass them on the web. alternatively, i suggest boycotting their restaurant and calling them to complain! the number for the LA office is: 310-789-1000. and the corporate office (DEFINITELY CALL THEM) is: 310-247-0491 ALSO, join the anti-pink-taco FB page!

    poor donkey! 🙁

    PS: kinda funny: on may 10th 2010, pink taco emailed me urging me to come for a complimentary meal to try out all their vegan options. thank goodness i never took them up on it. shady, awful motherfuckers.

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83 responses to “pink taco abuses animals. tell them how you feel!” RSS icon

  • Tonya Jewell May 5th, 2011 at 21:13

    How horrifying! Sick, sick people. Hopefully this stunt will cost them dearly.

  • The icing on the cake is the cardboard cutout of the most interesting man in the world in the background.

  • LAME advertisement hurting a sweet innocent animal you cheap asses- hire the ten million out of work actors in LA
    Pink Taco SUCKS disgusting and disturbing
    would never eat your food and I hope you all go to jail for animal abuse quite sure that paint is TOXIC for that poor guy

  • I checked out their Facebook page before they deleted it and they were asking people to fucking sponsor the donkey on April 22nd! They were saying things like the pink dye is “green and safe and all of that” and that the donkey “likes all the attention.” Just awful! Apparently, there is some company who brings the donkey in and is a “handler”. I’d like to find out who the donkey rental company (or whatever) is and report them to the city, etc. This has got to stop!

    Also, a friend of mine pointed out that anyone who names their restaurant The Pink Taco must be a lowlife to begin with.

  • Some other animal rescue folks told me they did this same bullshit last year!

  • how horrible! thank you for sharing. i posted to my FB. did they actually “brand” it like burn their name into the side? people disgust me daily 🙁

    i like the suggestion about hiring someone to wear a funny costume instead and draw on their body, i imagine you’d have no trouble finding someone to do this for a couple bucks in LA.

  • Harassing people makes you no better then those that are doing something as awful as this. I hope that instead of encouraging people to harass this establishment you encourage them to change the situation through other forms of protest.

  • Maybe calling Mr. Peter S. Lowy, the Group Managing Director who runs Westfield’s entire U.S. operation (they’re an Australian company) out of an office on Wilshire Blvd at (310) 478 4456 and complaining to him about what one of his tenants is doing at his Westfield Century City location would get some attention. I’m guessing that Westfield is a pretty forward-thinking company and would not be happy to hear that one of their tenants is abusing animals on their property. If someone spray-painted their dog and wrote an ad on it and put it outside their business I bet they could get in some serious trouble with the city. In fact, since Century City is part of the City of Los Aneles, and since there’s photographic evidence of what happened, I’m guessing it might also be worth people calling the city’s Animal Cruelty Task Force at (213) 486-0450 to report this. Maybe it’s even the kind of thing that someone could get fined or arrested for. It certainly seems like animal cruelty to me.

  • I took to their Yelp page and gave them a piece of my mind! You should do, those pieces of Sh**!

  • great suggestions

  • And speaking of abuse to animals like this, I was at Disneyland recently and was shocked to see that on “Main Street” there are still horses pulling gigantic trains that are loaded with people. They use a single horse to pull something that must weigh thousands of pounds, and this was on a day when temperatures were in the high 80s. I can’t believe this is still legal, and that nobody is calling Disney on it. I’ll bet top management at Disney doesn’t even know or they’d put an end to it. It was downright cruel. Maybe I should try to contact Michelle Cho about it. Maybe she’d know what to do.

  • Sad day when I’d rather see an animal brutally slaughtered for food 🙁

  • harrassment that gets the issue stopped is still a more intelligent choice than going to there homes at 2 am dragging them out covering them in honey and hanging them over an african fire ant mound…..buut still if i had my way…….id choose the latter of the two….lol just sayin…

  • It’s another matter whether or not you think it should be happening at all, on principal, but you can be damn sure that Disney is following any legal guidelines to the letter in regards to the horses.

    Apparently no horse “works” more than 12 hours a week.

    You can still be outraged by this as a vegan, but to the “normal” world it’s hardly egregious.

  • I will be In L A tomorrow nite and Pink Taco is not were I will be stopping to eat ! This is abuse I will not eat were , abuse takes place or people seem to think it’s OK as long as it is for their own gain ! to make a animal suffer you should be ashamed

  • Well, I don’t think anyone here was ever planning on eating there anyway.

  • does it matter if the animal is “poor” or “defenseless?” doesn’t it just matter that it’s alive? i don’t think sensationalist jargon is getting any more people on our side. either way ew.

  • Da Data Monkey May 6th, 2011 at 00:36

    It looks rather like the Donkey has been shaved too. Either that or it has been so badly treated it’s lost it’s hair.

  • I am in the UK and i cant believe this can happen in the USA! how can they not be fined for such a horrendous offence, if this was in the UK it would be all over the papers, on the news etc. they would be driven out of town, it just would not be allowed to happen, what is being done about this abuse??? i would be interested to know, i am absolutely furious!!
    regards from the uk, mandyx

  • I’ve definitely eaten there before, when my omnivorous friends wanted to celebrate a night out. HELL NO will I ever be eating there again, unless they release a major public apology and acknowledge how absolutely disgusting this is. Then again, to be fair, any restaurant that serves meat & dairy is guilty of sins far worse than one spray painted donkey (as tragic as it is).

  • Why didn’t someone go there and try to release the animal? Call the SPCA picket outside the restaurant and give the donkey some water or food? Calling the restaurant will only make them angry and take it out on the animal!

  • Yes, most people probably see nothing wrong with it.

  • Oh, I see they are located in Century City…. Also, their menu is repulsive AND they are an Overpriced.

  • Ou8one2forme May 6th, 2011 at 05:08

    I would have expected this done to a cat. Lame “asses”…

    The owners should walk around covered in pink for their business, not animals.. Oh, wait but then someone might call they..what?!?!

    They are Jackholes in the first place just for the business name

    o.0

  • Ummm… huh? I’m not sure I follow. Calling to lodge a complaint is tantamount to harassment?

  • Yes, is it possible to boycott a place that: 1) one has never been to, and: 2) one would never DREAM of going to?

  • @Gregalor – Then it is a shame the laws are so lax. As I said, the day I was there the temps were into the high 80s. I’m surprised the law doesn’t make them take the horses off the street in such heat. But even if they are following the law, I’m guessing a company like Disney wouldn’t want the bad publicity and might not choose this area to make a stand if people started making a big deal out of it. Maybe I’m failing to convey how wrong this seemed. It wasn’t shrug of the shoulders stuff, it was a blazing hot day and they are pulling a tremendous amount of weight – 10 to 20 passengers as I recall plus the weight of the enormous train car they are pulling.

  • Disgusting! I can’t believe anyone thought this was at all appropriate to do to an animal. But then again, as others have pointed out, their restaurant name alone demonstrates pretty juvenile thinking.

  • I would never eat at Pink Taco anyway – the name is offensive enough.

  • Could be a mule, too.
    Donkey/Horse hybrid.

    This fella seems too tall and long legged to be a donkey. Mules have shorter hair and they don’t have the same crazy adorbs fuzzy ears that donkeys do. Still pretty cute, though. Mules are more even mannered than horses or donkeys, too, and I can see that being useful when one is renting them out for stupid PR crap like this.

    Poor guy. He or she doesn’t look too happy. 🙁
    Glad they were forced to stop this stupid publicity stunt. Does this actually WORK? Who goes “oh hey, a pink mule! I want to eat there now for sure!” O.o

  • If we’re boycotting Pink Taco because they’re abusing this donkey, shouldn’t we boycott any restaurant that sells any animal products, at all? This restaurant didn’t kill this animal after months of torture to eat it. In my book, the sale and consumption of tortured and abused animals is just as bad as using a donkey for advertisement.

    How is it ok to boycott his restaurant for their actions on this one day, but overlook the fact that omni restaurants fry and dice and grill and chop the body parts of animals every. single. day. for sale, and we eat there as long as they pander to us with a few vegan options?

    I guess I don’t get the picking and choosing or the random drawing of lines upon which to state moral outrage.

  • ok, i am completely confused. what is so wrong with what pink taco is doing? how is it you believe this constitutes animal abuse? i guarantee this donkey is treated better than 99.9 percent of donkeys. i am sure he is well fed and cared for and is worked way less than a normal donkey that is raised as a work animal. is it the paint that is so concerning to you? i am sure they weren’t using lead based exterior paint. it was probably body paint that is completely harmless. is it standing in 85degree heat? really? do you think animals live in air conditioned barns? so i guess it must be that you feel this is degrading to donkeys? seriously? maybe you should focus your energy on something more egregious like factory farming.

  • @Michael. That others do things worse doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. If readers of this blog who dine there are made aware, they might not want to eat there anymore. That is a purpose it is serving.

  • @Cortney. Your comment is so similar to the one that followed it six minutes later by “michael” that it’s almost like you’re the same person!

    Are you saying you think it’s okay what Pink Taco did?

    Ya, of course factory farms treat animals worse. Ya, of course factory farming should stop and eating meat perpetuates it. But for Pink Taco to think this is okay to do at a shopping mall where their presumption is that everyone who sees it will think it’s funny and not abusive just shows what kind of lowlife a-holes they are, don’t you think? (Unless you work there in which case you probably don’t consider yourself to be an a-hole.)

  • @no meat, i am not trying to offend anyone on this page but please explain what it is about this exactly that is wrong. i think if you are going to damage someone’s reputation and business you should have solid reasons and do it with caution and purpose.

  • I can just picture some of the people walking around this area eating meat-on-a-stick. (Unless, perhaps, they aren’t able to purchase meat-on-a-stick in the Main Street area of Disneyland.)

  • They have meat-on-a-stick AND meat-on-a-bone. Disneyland sells turkey legs. It’s nasty having to deal with people walking around with them, with bloody arteries dangling off them.

  • Raymond Joseph May 6th, 2011 at 08:25

    What complete douche bags.

  • To me, it’s the degrading nature of it. If it was just a normal donkey chilling out I don’t think I would mind as much (though I would question the lack of shade).

    The fact that this thing is painted pink with a taco joint’s name painted on it, like a cheap billboard, is what pisses me off.

  • HORRIFIC! BUT…I guess it stands to reason that one would be subjected to such wretchedness in an anti-vegan place like Disneyland (not that it doesn’t have some very GOOD points, and I’ve no doubt we’ll go back some day, but it IS very anti-vegan, so the meat-on-a-stick and meat-on-a-bone fit right in, as does the horse pulling the trolley).

  • @Michael. What gives you away as an employee/owner of Pink Taco is the last sentence of your first comment: “maybe you should focus your energy on something more egregious like factory farming.”

    Nobody who was concerned about the abuses of factory farming would think it was okay to take a living thing, spray paint it all over including its face, paint the name of a business on its side, and leave it out in 90 degree heat, unshaded, all day long.

  • They have a decent amount of vegan food, though it’s still a shockingly low amount for a place that’s supposed to be hosting people of all types from around the world. It’s enough to get by. One entree per eatery would be nice, though.

  • Did anyone think to ask the Donkey how it felt? Maybe it really was embarrassed and humiliated. Or maybe it loved the attention and is a bit of a clown? I think we should hear a statement from the Donkey before we jump to any conclusions. Geez.

  • Well, I will admit that I really did enjoy the popcorn and fresh fruit! ; )

  • Paging the A.L.F. This place should get torched.

  • I am sickened, saddened, outraged, and so beyond upset. And then I read some other readers’ comments about this not being a big deal. If that’s how you feel, let’s spray-paint you, and chain you up, and have you stand outside in the heat with no water. And I’m sure you would be like sure, I’m down for that! Great, glad to get your verbal agreement, you fucked-up human being.

    I have written to the Farm Sanctuary of California begging them to take in this animal. Please write to them as well! Let’s do what we can to help make this a happy ending.

  • ok no meat. i have no problem sharing my real identity. my name is michael bulkowski and i am the chef/owner of revolver restaurant in findlay, ohio. i practice what i preach. i don’t use factory farmed animals and i believe in the humane treatment of all animals but i also believe that farming animals for food is completely acceptable. i am just pointing out that i believe you have good intentions but i think you could focus your energy in a better direction. how about the overfishing of our oceans? the thailand shrimping business that is destroying the mangroves? the troll fishing that destroys everything in its path? and for the record the picture clearly shows the donkey standing in the shade.

  • The gumbo is vegan, there’s tostada bowls, veggie skewers, soft pretzels filled with apple pie filling, some shitty pasta, chili bread bowls at California Adventure…

    But you’re gluten-free, too, right? They’re definitely not down with that.

  • Oh, sure, because we need to give people a REAL reason to hate vegans.

  • Are you defending animal abuse because we can’t talk to the animals to see if they actually like it? Because that’s pretty psychotic.

  • Yep, I avoid gluten as much as possible, so the gumbo, etc., wouldn’t work for me. Plus I just wouldn’t trust that the gumbo, skewers, etc., would be uncontaminated.

  • I don’t think anyone is saying that it’s not a big deal. But, IMO, what they did to the donkey is much better than what they do every day to cows, chickens, and pigs. So if you did not boycott Pink Taco prior to this, and did not get outraged over Pink Taco prior to this, it seems a little disingenous to get mad at them now. It’s like the people who protest Michael Vick on their way to In ‘N’ Out.

  • Michael, thank you for revealing your identity. I apologize for saying you worked for Pink Taco. One thing I’m having trouble understanding though is that you say in your comment that you “don’t use factory farmed animals and believe in the humane treatment of all animals” and yet your website for your restaurant says you are dedicated to exposing your customers to new and different foods “including foie gras.” Are you unaware of how foie gras is produced? There are videos you can find on YouTube. They basically hold the animals mouth open and stick a hose down its throat and with a reverse-vaccumcleaner type process they shoot food down its throat to fatten it up. It is awful and that’s not just my opinion; you must know that it’s considered so abusive that some municipalities have gone so far as to ban it through legislation.

    And yes, you are absolutely right that there are much more abusive practices going on in the world that deserve more focus than a spray-painted mule, but remember, this was simply one blog post on Quarrygirl’s blog; it’s not like she’s devoted her whole life to keeping paint off donkeys. She simply found this abusive, as did I. Are there other worse and more common abuses? Certainly. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to take a moment to point out a lesser one.

  • As always, good work Quarry Girl! I’ve only been there once, but it doesn’t look like I will be going back.

  • I liked the original title of this blog post better (the one with the f word).

  • Thank you for saying this. That was my initial reaction as well. This could at least be used to shed some light on pink taco’s food sourcing policies, as opposed to making sure they never use a mascot to do their advertising.

  • Gauri Radha गौरी राधा May 6th, 2011 at 11:23

    Poor donkey, this seems rather unnecessary 🙁

  • Do we know where the donkey went? Was it saved?

  • OMG! I was just there last weekend. My husband and his coworkers almost went to cinqo de mayo there last year, but obviously it was really crowded. Had I decided to brave the crowds and go there, I promise I would have burst into tears and turned around and left. That’s appalling.

  • Yelp is your friend!

  • We wanted outstanding guacamole on Cinco de Mayo, so we called Truly.

  • HeathenWorld May 6th, 2011 at 12:59

    why the hell is this a problem? donkeys are sturdy animals and one working on a farm has a much worse day than that one hanging out with pink paint on it .. you urban people need to spend some time on the rest of the planet

  • Good idea, lets play nice while they torture animals. I’m glad you are more concerned with perception than ethics. That’s really gone save some lives.

  • Your life is a waste of time.

  • I am also baffled by the companies who “care” and “love” the animals in their charge who rent out for these things. YOU WOULDN’T SCREEN FOR BAD INTENTIONS?
    Its this company here who rented this poor donkey to this terrible place:
    http://www.philsanimalrentals.com/contact.html

  • Just at tip. Calling them “motherfuckers” doesn’t help you get your point across. It just makes you sound stupid.

  • Wow, it took a lot longer for the Pottymouth Police to show up this time. Frankly, I’m disappointed. You guys are losing your edge.

  • KTLA picked this up and has a story here:

    http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-pink-taco-donkey-outrage,0,7749811.story

    And a poll!!! VOTING TIME!!! Bad pub for the dumbest-named restaurant I’ve ever heard of:

    http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-poll-pink-donkey-controversy,0,6869273,post.poll

  • They’re FINISHED! I’m working with a Tour company to make sure they educate visitors to not even *consider* going there. They are Done…

  • http://oi51.tinypic.com/10xzmzb.jpg

    Lol, silly knee jerk sheep blog girl

  • No Meat- I thought about not even pandering to your tin foil hat assumptions that I’m the same person as “Michael”, but here goes. I’m not Michael, and if you had read my comment critically you would see that I was not saying one was better or worse. I was making the point that it seems strange that one would boycott this restaurant on the basis of “animal cruelty” due to the use of the donkey to advertise, yet vegans happily patronize omni restaurants- places that partake in the exploitation of animals with almost every. single. plate. they make. It seems like an absurdly hypocritical position to take- “let’s protest this restaurant for animal cruelty” and “let’s patronize this other restaurant that sells dead animals and their excretions”.

    My point, which you clearly missed, is that BOTH are animal cruelty, yet people are rah rahing to boycott this restaurant and two posts from now when Quarrygirl raves about three vegan options out of a meatfest restaurant everyone will be saying they can’t wait to check it out. I’m simply saying that seems like a bit of hypocrisy.

    Also, is it so hard to assume that out of the entire internet there might be two people who are both critical of a post? The fact that you assumed we were the same person says volumes about the way you view the world. Not everyone responds in the exact same “fuck yeah Quarrygirl, you’re always right!!” manner. And that’s ok. It’s just the internet. But thank God we have your super sleuth detective skills to suss out those deceptive double commenters switching between screen names. It’s a damn epidemic, I tell you!

  • Well done, No Meat! You shamed a stranger into revealing their entire name before you would finally acknowledge that they might not be an undercover Pink Taco employee or owner.

    Damn, between thinking Michael and I were the same person, and thinking that both of us (as the same person) worked for Pink Taco, your tin foil hat is now a shining crown! What a proud moment for animal advocacy. I’m sure that work saved a lot of animals. You should be given the internet research award!

  • This is pretty sick. I’m concerned with a) where the donkey came from and b) if he’s ok now. Is he somewhere safe, with responsible people? Did the paint hurt him?

    CM

  • Cortney, you are right, I am wrong, and I am not being sarcastic.

    I didn’t think you might be the same person because you had a similar opinion, but rather because those were the only two critical posts out of about 50 at the time and they came a few minutes apart. And people do the sock puppet thing on comment boards all the time. But I was wrong. My bad.

    Maybe as you claim, you were not saying that one is better than the other. But one IS better than the other, right? As offensive as painting a mule is, it’s not worse than a meat restaurant with a few veggie options selling — day in and day out — meat that came from the mistreatment and possible torture of animals.

    And you’re also right that it IS hypocritical of me to get so offended by the pink pony while patronizing omni restaurants. And here’s why. The pink pony is NEW. That’s why it even made the NEWS on ktla.

    We are inured to the consumption of meat all around us. Okay some are more inured than others, but even vegans are, to varying degrees, inured. We hate that the meat industry exists and that people keep eating meat which supports it, but we’re used to it. We do our individual part by personally refraining, but it goes on all around us. Of the small subset of Americans and earthlings who are vegan, it is yet a tinier subset who are constantly active to change things.

    But when some a-hole spray-paints an animal for a laugh, or as a marketing stunt, or both, hey, that’s a new one on us. And we say to ourselves, what kind of a-hole would do that. And we get pissed. And if there’s a thousand restaurants in town that sell meat, but only one of those thousand also degrades a living thing like it’s a piece of cardboard, then we get even more pissed at them.

    That’s all a lengthy way of saying again that you are right. It is worse to sell meat than to spray paint a donkey. But the donkey gets our attention. And of course a pink donkey is INTENDED to get our attention, but it’s intended to get our attention so that we then go patronize the restaurant, and maybe it works for some people.

    But as I said earlier, while selling meat is worse, I think it’s certainly okay for QG to take a minute to point out what turds the Pink Taco folks were being. I bet food animals are also tortured more than circus animals yet the meat industry may be boycotted less than the circus industry or at least met with less disdain. Is it perhaps because somewhere at the back of our mind we think people need to eat more than they need to go to the circus or laugh at a pink donkey?

    Thank you for making your points so intelligently. Apologies.

  • It’s not wise to ever advise anyone to harass anyone online or off. Be very careful in your phrasing, you can end up causing people a lot of legal problems if you are not. Sounds silly but lets learn from others mistakes.

    How would you expect a place that serves dead animals to understand that advertising with the pink donkey might not be kind? It takes education and when people take steps to rectify their wrongs, understanding.

    You need to be less reactionary and think of long term battle for animal rights.

  • Scott S. McCoy May 6th, 2011 at 16:58

    Considering it looks like they used this crap teenager put in their hair all the time (http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/jerome-russell-b-wild-temp%27ry-hair-color-spray/ID=prod355241-product), not high gloss enamel (http://www.amazon.com/Oleum-7765-830-Rust-Oleum-Spray-Paint/dp/B00176V37U), and the donkey is tied up — I have difficulty understanding how this is animal cruelty.

    Have you ever been to a farm? A ranch? Tying up a donkey is hardly animal cruelty.

  • Just a tip. Being a pretentious motherfucker just makes you sound like a pretentious motherfucker.

  • PINK TACO I HOPE YOUR BUSINESS FAILS YOUR REALLY SICK IN THE HEAD……..

  • http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198031560240702
    We are protesting tomorrow, the above link is the info on Facebook. Please sign up and voice your opinion in person.

  • After not going to Disneyland in AGES, i randomly just bought an annual pass since so many friends and family have them. When I walked in, i told my date (who im sure didnt care) I cant beleive Disneyland is using these horses!!! Why not just use the ugly trolly and trains operation by people?
    I’m an obnoxious asshole. When passing by I would talk shit to the tourists on the “ride” and assure them the horse isnt happy about carrying thier lazy fat asses around.
    It really bothers me, but I doubt my one complaint to management would make any difference.
    Even more odd, is the turkey that President Bush pardoned a few years back. It lives on disney property in a little area right next to a BBQ stand! Wtf! That is SO creepy!

  • What about those people who rent out donkeys to play sports games at high schools and such. I’ve seen pictures of morons sitting on donkeys in a gym trying to play basketball and such (i think they call it donkey ball or some lame shit), and they sell tickets as a fundraiser!!!

  • You're an Idiot October 18th, 2011 at 21:55

    Seriously? Its paint. Stop being a little pansy ass and understand that Donkeys are put through much worse in every day life. Its standing there in mild weather. Big fuckin deal. Grow up and learn what abuse really is you douche.

  • Jerks…let’s chain up the owner painted all pink in the heat of summer and see how he likes it. 🙁


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