Oil backers cheesed off at Domino’s over protest
When a potential public relations crisis starts to cook on social media, a pizza giant like Domino’s better have a thick skin, not just a thin crust.
On Sunday, the company briefly issued — then deleted — a statement on Facebook in support of oil workers after Domino’s franchise owners in Alberta faced boycott threats from bitumen backers who alleged the firm offered free pizzas to environmental activists in Burnaby, B.C.
“Boycotting your products,” wrote Dean Seltenrich on Facebook. “Blue collar workers everywhere will be encouraged to do the same while you support eco-terrorists! #makeastand #boycottdominos.”
But five hours later, after Domino’s insisted it had never offered free pizza to protesters, Seltenrich backed down: “Retracted. Great job Dominos.”
The incident that apparently sparked the online furor was in fact more than a month earlier, on Feb. 12, when Squamish First Nation member Clarissa Antone posted a photograph on Facebook, showing eight Domino’s pizza boxes at Camp Cloud, an activist encampment facing the Kinder Morgan entrance on Burnaby Mountain. “Thank you so much Dominos (sic) Pizza for bringing us pizza … Thanks for supporting Camp Cloud,” she wrote.
Chris Monteith, in Grand Prairie, Alta., wrote on Domino’s Facebook page: “Never again dominoes. Never again. Think of us out there risking our lives for you just so you can side with Hippocrates (sic) and scum. Think of us when you turn your heat on when cold. Think of us at -40 outside working all day and night.”
Another user, Cynthia Renneberg Dyer, asked, “How do they think they cook those pizzas boycotting the pipelines will take your ovens away no fuel to cook, idiots,” she wrote on Domino’s Facebook page. “Never eating Dominoes again.”
The company could not be immediately reached for comment, but on Sunday evening the official Domino’s Canada page on Facebook denied the accusations and pledged its support for the Alberta oilsands.
The post, which could not be independently verified but was widely circulated before being deleted, stated the company had contacted all its Vancouver-area franchisees and “to the best of our knowledge, none of our stores have provided support to any groups who are opposed to the Trans Mountain Pipeline Project,” the official post stated at 6:14 p.m. “Although we fully support everyone’s right to their opinion and free speech, we do not endorse this protest movement as we recognize the importance of the Canadian oilpatch industry.”
To get to the bottom of the crusty rumour, Metro spoke to Antone by phone.
“It wasn’t free. Somebody else ordered it and didn’t pick it up,” the Squamish member explained. “He was just driving by — he didn’t make or bring it to us, they didn’t make it especially for us.
“I feel really bad for that, I wish I didn’t share that picture … I wish people would leave Domino’s out of this.”