Hooters Liquor and Poker Billboard Banned
Mayor Frank Hibbard was on his way home from church one Sunday when he first saw the billboard for the Hooters restaurant chain. “Liquor in Clearwater, Poker in Vegas,” read the billboard, visible to westbound motorists on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard, near the restaurant.
It took a little while to sink in.
“The first time I read it, it went over my head, and then I got it,” said Hibbard. “I thought, ‘That’s not good.’ “It’s full of innuendo, and it’s not what we want to see on Gulf-to-Bay right when you come in” to the city.
Hibbard demonstrates how right Forest Gump’s mama was when she told him, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
A variant of the billboard in question is thumbnailed at right. Adrants, which spells out the double entendre for those even slower than Mayor Hibbard, has an interesting discussion about the controversy, with commenter Elsie’s “It’s Hooters for crying out loud!” pretty well summing it up.
It’s an old joke, poorly told but hardly offensive. Certainly, no more so than the very concept of marketing a restaurant around the sexual desirability of scantily clad waitstaff.
via Jacob Sullum
Jeeze! I think I learned that one in grade school.
A terrible blow to free speech…
Of course they could have at least followed-up with:
Enjoy the wings and drumsticks, but please, don’t touch the breasts!
Hooters, a titty bar for Baptists.
And once again my little area of the country makes national news. Thanks. thanks a lot.
By the way, I am more ashamed that the mayor (not my mayor, thank God) is a moron than by the ad.
Why don’t you check with Steve—you might have unfairly profiled that man as stupid? It might be mayor selection bias.
…yet the name “Hooters” apparently only refers to the name of the restaurant, and has no innuendo at all. To call this “controversy” stupid is an insult to stupid people everywhere.