WASHINGTON ( WDCW ) – A Washington D.C.-based pizza chain has removed a new dessert item from the menu after it stirred controversy in the community, with some leaders even calling for boycotts .
The chain, &pizza, had been selling a dessert it called “Marion Berry Knots,” with its name being an apparent reference to former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. The campaign surrounding the dessert also included drug references and innuendos that poked fun at Barry, who was at the center of a crack cocaine possession scandal in the 1990s.
“These knots will blow you away,” reads a message on a promotional photo for the fruit-filled pastries — with an emphasis on the word “blow.”
Other advertising efforts played up the amount of powdered sugar sprinkled over the dessert. Specifically, a press release indicated there was enough powdered sugar to “even force the DEA to look twice.”
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Cora Masters Barry, Barry’s wife, told Nexstar’s WDCW that &pizza never contacted her about the name of the dessert, and called it “racist and disrespectful.”