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Thanks PETA: Live Penguin Party In The Meatpacking District CANCELLED

John Del Signore

Published Jan 14, 2014

Modified Jan 14, 2014

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"Sorry, back into the sewers with you!"

John Del Signore

Published Jan 14, 2014

Modified Jan 14, 2014

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SeaWorld just can't have any fun! All the billion dollar animal captivity company wanted to do was throw a perfectly innocent penguin party in the Meatpacking District tonight. But no, the bird-huggers at PETA had to come along and spoil the fun. After announcing plans to protest the penguin party and calling upon restaurant Bagatelle to cancel, the owners finally decided it just wasn't worth the headache. Here are a series of emails that fired back and forth between the owners and PETA's Dan Matthews:

Dan,

I am the co- owner of Bagatelle. I saw your email and I am traveling on business in istanbul and London, back tomorrow.

We were very disturbed by what you told us and have let the reps of sea world that no live animals will be let in our establishment and that we will cancel their event if this was meant to take place.

They have granted our request and subsequently no live animals of any form will be on site.

I hope this makes you all feel better.

Regards

From: Dan Mathews
Sent: Monday, January 13, 11:45 PM
To: Remi Laba
Cc: Aymeric Clemente, Cihan Yilmaz
Subject: Re: Bagatelle's Sea World promotion this Tuesday

Dear Remi,

Thanks for sparing the penguins but our protest is against any promotion of Sea World, as my letter states, and will proceed.

Dan

From: Cihan Yilmaz
Sent: Monday, January 13, 11:45 PM
To: Dan Mathews
Cc: Aymeric Clemente, Remi Laba
Subject: Re: Bagatelle's Sea World promotion this Tuesday

Dear Dan,

We have canceled the event all together.

Cihan Yilmaz

From: Remi Laba
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 12:03 AM
To: Dan Mathews; Cihan Yilmaz
Cc: Aymeric Clemente
Subject: Re: Bagatelle's Sea World promotion this Tuesday

Dan,

My partner and I have decided to cancel the event. Please know that we were booked by an third party agency and didn't know who the client was and what was going on.

However, as much as I respect your cause and your actions, you also have to understand that this unfortunate episode has cost us a tremendous amount of money. While we are ok with this, we would appreciate PETA and all its affiliates to put as much efforts into letting people how good Bagatelle was to your cause.

We are not involved in this and we did all we could to do what was right in our hearts. We now hope that you will, in return, demonstrate that you are appreciative of our gesture.

I will be looking forward to hearing from you

Animal rights activists such as PETA were attempting to disrupt tonight’s event through harassment and misinformation. The reception has been cancelled. This is the right thing to do out of concern for our friends, guests and patrons who planned to attend.

Our animal ambassadors travel frequently for educational appearances at schools, functions and media outlets to help inform the public about the plight of animals in the wild and to encourage people to care. These animals are well-cared for and are accompanied by world-class animal care professionals. Such public appearances do not cause stress as suggested. SeaWorld has extensive background with penguins, including assisting in large scale rescue efforts around the globe. It’s disappointing that PETA and other animal rights activist groups, which have no relevant experience with these animals, would make up baseless facts to advance extreme and uninformed agendas.

Yes, pity the poor brave owners of Bagatelle, who had to turn down a private event all because of a few penguins caused a big stink. What if the loss of revenue forces them to cancel their travels in Istanbul and London? Would THAT make you happy, PETA?

It's still unclear why penguins were even involved. The party was intended to celebrate SeaWorld's 50th anniversary, and it also coincided with reports of SeaWorld's record-breaking $1.46 billion profit in Fiscal Year 2013, despite all the negative attention generated by the documentary Blackfish? We asked SeaWorld for comment, and received this statement:

Animal rights activists such as PETA were attempting to disrupt tonight’s event through harassment and misinformation. The reception has been cancelled. This is the right thing to do out of concern for our friends, guests and patrons who planned to attend. Our animal ambassadors travel frequently for educational appearances at schools, functions and media outlets to help inform the public about the plight of animals in the wild and to encourage people to care. These animals are well-cared for and are accompanied by world-class animal care professionals. Such public appearances do not cause stress as suggested. SeaWorld has extensive background with penguins, including assisting in large scale rescue efforts around the globe. It’s disappointing that PETA and other animal rights activist groups, which have no relevant experience with these animals, would make up baseless facts to advance extreme and uninformed agendas. For more information about us please visit seaworld.com/truth.

PETA, for its part, would like you to visit this site.

And if you're upset about missing the penguins tonight, at least Minus 5 Ice Bar is still open. You can chill out in there and imagine you're in Antarctica. The penguins scheduled to perform tonight, of course, will be slaughtered. (Kidding, they're probably going ice skating at Rockefeller Center with their "world-class animal care professionals.")

Tagged

Bagatelle

penguins

peta

seaworld

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John Del Signore

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Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.

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