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Food

People Are Pissed at This Bar's Inflatable Border Wall

A Cinco de Mayo stunt at a Southern California tavern didn't turn out quite the way the bar's owner had hoped.
Photo via Facebook user Laycee Barragato Gibson

Thanks to a bar promotion gone terribly wrong during Cinco de Mayo last week, the owner of Hennessey's Tavern in Dana Point, California probably learned a thing or two. Lesson number one: Don't count on social media denizens to have a subtle sense of humor or sophisticated takes on satire. Lesson number two: Some people are really pissed about the state of immigration in this nation and aren't ready to joke about it—like, at all. Lesson number three: Celebrating a cooked-up, semi-obscure Mexican holiday is a fraught thing in Trump's America.

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The problem started when the bar's owner, Paul Hennessey, decided to set up an inflatable "wall" and hand out "green cards" to customers on May 5, all part of a promotion that allowed those who managed to climb to the top of the wall to receive one free drink.

Ha ha, right?

Maybe not.

Since the event, critics have taken to Yelp, Facebook, and elsewhere online to express their extreme displeasure with the tone-deaf promotion.

In a Facebook posting of his own, Hennessey defended the promotion: "I guess the way it was presented, some people took it a different way." The bar owners insists that he meant to draw attention to the absurdity of Trump's immigration policies—and neither make fun of immigrants nor make light of their situation.

Still, some simply didn't get the "joke." Laycee Barragato Gibson, a Facebook user who had stopped by the bar during the festivities, wasn't amused. She posted:

MUNCHIES reached out to Hennessey's Tavern for comment, but the manager declined an interview and instead pointed us to the bar's statement on Facebook, which read in full:

As of this morning, 264 commenters have dived in, parsing the meaning of the promotion, opining on its merits, and discussing the pros and cons of Hennessey's statement. Some are with Hennessey, and some are most certainly not.

We have a feeling that next May 5, there won't be any inflatable slides or jokey ID cards in sight at Hennessey's bar.