Burger King Franchisee Says Its A Free Country, Chain Can't Squelch Signage Speech
After Burger King Corp told him to take down the wording on the outside sign, “Global warming is baloney',” the franchise owner is now defiant. He dreams that a franchisee has the right to say what it wants on a brand's signage. The owner of some 40 Burger Kings, Mirabile Investment Corporation in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, told Britain’s The Guardian today that his franchisor is “kinda like cockroaches” and that he does not believe Burger King has the authority to make him take down the signs.
The franchisee had a change of heart after he first removed the sign at corporate’s behest:
“a few days later readers of the Memphis paper said they had seen about a dozen Burger King restaurants across the state displaying the signs and that some had yet to be taken down.”
Mirabile’s marketing manager told the British, where most of the population is concerned about global warming:
“The [restaurant] management team can put the message up there if they want to. It is private property and here in the US we do have some rights. Notwithstanding a franchise agreement, I could load a Brinks vehicle with [rights] I've got so many of them. By the time the Burger King lawyers work out how to make that stick we'd be in the year 2020." He continued: "Burger King can bluster all they want about what they can tell the franchisee to do, but we have free-speech rights in this country so I don't think there's any concerns."
Is the franchisee from Memphis truly this clueless? Or is it just his loose lipped marketing manager who wants to sink the franchise ship?
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A Burger King Calls Global Warming Baloney- Franchise topic:
