Wednesday, June 10, 2015

You can donate to whoever you want, but

it'd be a good idea to know who/what you're supporting; the price for not doing so could be high.
Liquor stores in a Colorado coal town are pulling craft beers from their shelves after a number of their brewers donated to an environmental group working to shut down coal mines.
Oopsie.
Gillam’s liquor store, Stockmen’s, pulled several beer brands from its shelves, including the popular Fort Collins-based New Belgium, over their support for the group.

WildEarth Guardians has since taken down its website’s list of corporate supporters, but a cached version remains online.
"Oh crap, this might affect our donations!  Pull the list!"  You forget, bunkie, the innernets is FOREVER.
“I had a band in here on Friday night and somebody came up to me and said, ‘Did you know that New Belgium is on board with WildEarth Guardians?’ I confirmed it, and after I confirmed it, I walked up to my bartender and said, ‘Get that s— out from behind my bar,’” Griffith said. “I can’t see supporting a company that supports a company that’s trying to put us out of business. The very beer I’m selling is trying to put me out of business, because they’re in bed with WildEarth Guardians.”
Yeah, that just might piss people off, y'think?


And the response:
New Belgium confirmed that it had donated to WildEarth but said that it had no plans to continue doing so. The brewer said it was unaware of the group’s anti-coal advocacy.
"We don't plan to continue now that it's biting big chunks out of our ass."  As to whether they knew... only they can say.   And I doubt they're dumb enough to say "Yes, we knew they hate coal; so do we."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Things were so much simpler when beer companies would just make and sell beer. Then someone got the bright idea that they could squeeze corporations for cash and get a share of the profits before the stockholders get it. Then the executives get a nice plaque and maybe a pretty girl smiles at them at a cocktail party in exchange for company money.

Personally, I would like to see it prosecuted as a form of fraud for any publicly traded company to donate money to a political or activice cause of any kind. Anything that pulls money away from the shareholders is a theft.