Obama Chia pulled from Rite Aid stores after complaints from customers
The News Tribune (Tacoma WA) ^ | 12/3/2010
If you had been planning to fill out your shopping list with the Chia Obama - Special Edition, time may be running out.
A friend was in the Bremerton Rite Aid and noticed clerks removing the novelty item from a display that also include Abe Lincoln, George Washington and the Statue of Liberty. It is part of Chia's "I'm Proud To Be An American Collection."
When he asked why, he was told they had been recalled.
"Just the Obama Chia's? Not LIncoln. Or Washington?"
Just Obama, they said, on orders from company headquarters.
I rushed to the Rite Aid on Pearl Street in Tacoma and scored the last box in the display. Thankfully I got the "Determined" pose, not the "Happy" pose because it is much more dignified. It says "Barack Obama 44th President USA" on the front of the pedestal and "Yes We Can" on the side.
The box includes this message: "Hail to the Ch-Ch-Ch-Chief."
Ashley Flowers, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania-based drug store chain, said the Obama Chia's had been removed due to customer complaints.
"Some of our customers felt we were making some sort of political statement with the Obama Chia's," Flower said. "That was not our intention."
Did they think it was promoting the president or was it offensive?
"That's between our customers and the company," Flower said.
In April of 2009, Walgreens pulled the product after receiving a few complaints. That move puzzled the guy who created the Obama Chia, a Chicago native named Joe Pedott.
"I have a product everyone wants – there is tremendous demand – and they can't get it," Pedott told me Friday. "Why? Because the stores are afraid of offending people and I don't understand how." In fact, according to Pedott, Obama loves it. Shortly after the election he showed the product to a Chicago woman who was a longtime Obama friend. She arranged for Pedott to be invited to a reception in Indianapolis where he gave a copy of the Chia to the president and posed for pictures.
"He said, 'this is a very nice likeness of me but I have green hair,' " Pedott said of the president's reaction. He also claimed that the Rev. Jesse Jackson told him he thought the product was fine.
"I did it to help not the president but what he is trying to do. Hope," said Pedott, a lifelong Republican who said he voted for Obama "after they put Palin on the ticket."
To make the stores more comfortable with Obama Chia, Pedott said he added the Lincoln, Washington and Statue of Liberty. But only K-Mart continues to carry it.
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It is part of Chia's "I'm Proud To Be An American Collection."
Maybe birthers complained?
