Rockland Residents Protest Raunchy St. Patrick's Day Merchandise
WEST NYACK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) - With St. Patrick's Day a little more than two weeks away, shamrocks are starting to pop up here and there. So is raunchy merchandise, and residents are protesting.
There are bawdy, crude, rude, and insulting stereotypes on t-shirts and hats at Spencer's and at kiosks at the Palisades Center mall and Rockland County Irish say enough is enough.
"'Everybody loves a drunk slut.' I've hats with 'Irish Girls Wasted,'" Neil Cosgrove, national anti-defamation chair for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, told WCBS 880 reporter Sean Adams.
Rockland Residents Protest Raunchy St. Patrick's Day Merchandise
He says jokes about inebriation and sexual innuendo are degrading and demeaning and he wanted the products pulled.
"There were offensive shirts before but I can't even repeat for you to use on the radio the words that are on these shirts. And why I'm particularly upset is it seems like now they're starting to particularly target women and our daughters and nieces and our granddaughters," he said.
He cited those who have been wounded and killed serving their country, such as the late Lt. Michael P. Murphy as "the true Irish-American."
So far, there has been no comment from Spencer's or the mall.
Last year, when Rockland County lawmakers got involved, stores pulled the insulting items.
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