Missouri Bar Offers ‘Mike Brown Special’: Six Shots

A Missouri bar has stirred up a bit of controversy by offering up what they call the Mike Brown Special: Six shots (get it?) for $10.

According to KNPN (St. Joseph, Missouri), the slogan at Mug Shots bar in St. Joseph is “Where sarcasm is always free.” The bar owner, Rodney Stapleton, says “out-of-line jokes” are part of the bar’s culture, and so, a joke based on the Mike Brown shooting would not be unexpected.

Stapleton says he got the idea after seeing a picture of a Mike Brown Special being offered at another St. Joseph bar – which is unnamed – being shared on social media.

“I took it off of Facebook. People were passing the sign around Facebook and it looked like it was getting a good response, so I just decided to use it here. That’s what bar owners do. If they find out something works in another bar, they try to use it at their bar. Apparently I shouldn’t have used it. I should have thought about it a little more before I made it a shot special.”

WDAF (Kansas City) reports that the bar owner has since withdrawn the Mike Brown special after it got a negative response. On Saturday night, “a few” protesters held signs outside the bar and chanted.

The bar owner also got a visit from a man named Brian Kline, who claims to be affiliated with Anonymous, the hacker collective that has been known to disable websites of groups that they (Anonymous) deem deserving. Kline says that he and the bar owner reached a peaceful agreement.

“We’re not out here to burn anything down or anything like that, but you know, we talked it out.”

Mr. Kline has not, as of this post, gotten the other, unnamed St. Joseph bar to discontinue the Mike Brown Special – an issue he hopes to have addressed by the end of the weekend. But as for Mug Shots’ Mike Brown Special, he’s satisfied.

“I won’t be here (at Mug Shots) tonight because I don’t think this place needs our attention. There are other problems in the world and places in this town that need our attention.”

Stapleton has since realized that his actions may have reflected poorly on St. Joseph.

“It makes us all look like a bunch of idiots and a bunch of thugs.”

Do you believe the bar’s Mike Brown Special is in poor taste or just a clever joke base on current events?

[Image courtesy of: KNPN]