Dunboyne councillor hits out at fast food outlet for "irresponsible publicity stunt"

A Dunboyne Fine Gael councillor has hit out at a local fast food restaurant for being “socially and morally irresponsible” for having a promotion that gave away 200 free pizzas resulting in a long queue outside the premises and littering in the local park on Tuesday afternoon.

Cllr Maria Murphy took to social media to voice her outrage at Apache Pizza in Dunboyne for the stunt on the day local schools in the area reopened for the first day of term. She said:

“There is something wrong with a company which encourages people to have a party during a pandemic.

“It is also socially and morally irresponsible when a company advertises that it is giving away 200 free pizzas @4pm on the day when all the local schools have reopened for the full day.

Cllr Murphy went on to say that publicity stunt resulted in a queue forming outside the shop flying in the face of current government restrictions.

“The amount of work which all the schools have undertaken to ensure the safety of their student body obviously wasn’t a concern to the management of Apache Dunboyne.”

The promotion also resulted in Dunboyne Park being heavily littered with the same pizza boxes according to Murphy.

“Although the outlet was asked to clean up the mess, it declined to do so and the mess was subsequently cleaned by local volunteers.

“We are proud of our beautiful village and we want to keep it that way. We care about the environment and don’t need the kind of business ethics that Apache Dunboyne promotes.

“Businesses are required by law to be responsible for the waste produced by their business, yet there was no plan by Apache Dunboyne to manage the waste from its ‘Free 200 pizzas’ promotion.”

Apache Pizza Dunboyne has been contacted for comment.