Backlash over billboard’s message rocks jewelry store

The jewelry store billboard was supposed to be a “fun play on words,” one of its owners said. But for those driving along the interstate in Asheville, N.C., the advertisement left a different impression.

“Sometimes, it’s OK to throw rocks at girls ... ,” the billboard for Spicer Greene Jewelers stated. A cluster of colorful gemstones surrounded the words.

The outrage was immediate among some local residents and soon spread nationwide as the images of the billboard circulated on the internet. Many argued the advertisement supported a culture of violence against women. Critics called for the billboard to come down. And a group of about 15 people protested outside the company’s store on Sunday.

“Really?” One sign at the protest read. “You can’t possibly have thought ‘Throwing rocks at girls’ was harmless!”

“Not cool,” one woman, Shannon Page wrote on Facebook. “Normalizing and finding humor in the, ‘He hit you because he likes you’ mentality that we feed to children is not OK.”

She added that children in cars driving by would not understand the humor in the billboard, and would simply believe it would be acceptable to throw rocks at girls.

Others called it “tonedeaf,” “misogynistic” and “disgusting.”

On Friday, Chelsea Clinton weighed in, tweeting: “Talking about hitting girls is never funny. Ever.”

In response to the outrage, Spicer Greene Jewelers posted an apology to its Facebook page, saying it does “not condone violence of any kind toward any being.”

“We are humble enough to realize when we make a mistake and humble enough to realize the context in which we are speaking,” the statement said. “We did not intend to cause controversy and our billboard communicated something we did not intend. We intended the billboard as a play on words to encourage the loving act of gift giving and are deeply saddened that it offended anyone.”

The company’s coowner, Eva-Michelle Spicer, told the Asheville Citizen-Times the company is considering taking down its ad. Spicer Greene Jewelers, which has been based in Asheville for 91 years through four generations of family ownership, usually changes the billboard every four weeks.

“We certainly didn’t mean harm by it,” Spicer said. “I don’t take offense to it and I didn’t mean offense by it.”

The owners said they would donate 10 percent of sales through Sunday to an Asheville domestic violence survivors shelter.