Not exactly their salad days
Beijing police crack down on Spartan ‘warriors’ hired by eatery for doomed PR stunt
BEIJING — Scores of bare-chested Spartan warriors marched through Beijing’s streets, drawing swarms of admirers, picture-takers — and then, suddenly, police.
Alocal salad restaurant’s marketing stunt went awry Wednesday afternoon when public security officials detained some of the muscular male models — each dressed in sandals, shorts and flowing black capes — that the eatery had hired to drum up enthusiasm in the city’s bustling commercial districts.
Photos posted online showed the men standing in formation in the posh Sanlitun shopping area; pictures apparently taken soon afterward showed two of them lying on a pedestrian flyover, police having wrestled them to the ground.
The Beijing Youth Daily newspaper said that police detained the models for “causing a public disturbance” after they failed to heed several warnings to disperse. The restaurant, Sweetie Salad, had not secured a permit to organize the event, the newspaper reported.
Most of the models were Russians, according to a public relations professional with knowledge of the incident who requested anonymity.
None of the models could immediately be reached for comment.
Sweetie Salad apologized in a statement posted to its microblog. “After yesterday’s incident, we have come to realize that we lack experience in co-ordinating major events as a start-up company,” it said. “We have worked out all misunderstandings with the police.”
The Beijing public security bureau wrote on its official microblog that it had received a “mass complaint” about the crowd Wednesday afternoon and “immediately” dispatched officers to the scene.
The incident quickly became a hot topic on the country’s most popular microblog, Sina Weibo. “300 Spartans were no match for the Beijing police!” said a widely forwarded post.
“This marketing campaign was really a failure — everybody was paying attention to the Spartans, but nobody even know (s) what product they were trying to promote,” wrote user Josiah Deng.
Beijing police have been on guard this year amid a wide-ranging effort by President Xi Jinping’s administration to limit freedom of speech and the activities of civil society.