Action Alert

Please write to the company, OddzOn. This company manufactures a rubber replica of a plucked dead chicken with its legs tied together for “Ages 3 and up.” The chicken is sold with a tootsie roll pop or other candy or object rammed down the bird's throat. It appears in drug stores and convenience stores and possibly toy departments and toy stores. The item encourages children and others to regard animal suffering and death as amusing as well as having pornographic implications. In response to UPC's complaint, Rite Aid pharmacy pulled the item from 22 Virginia-based stores in October, for which we thanked them. To date we have not yet received a reply to our letter to OddzOn asking the company to stop producing the rubber chicken. However Tootsie Roll Industries wrote to UPC that Tootsie Roll is reviewing its connection to the rubber chicken in response to our complaint, as the company does not wish “to promote cruelty to animals or send a negative message to children.”

• Urge OddzOn to stop producing and distributing the rubber plucked chicken toy. Contact:

  Customer Service
  OddzOn, Inc.
  50 Technology Court
  Napa, CA 94558
  Ph: 707-251-3700
  Toll Free: 800-755-6674
  Email: custserv@oddzon.com

• Urge Tootsie Roll Industries to disconnect its candy from the rubber plucked chicken toy. The company told UPC it is reviewing our request. Contact:

  Janet Vasilenko
  Consumer Relations Administrator
  Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc.
  7401 South Cicero Avenue
  Chicago, IL 60629
  Ph: 773-838-3400; fax: 3534
  Toll Free: 800-877-7655

• If you see the rubber plucked chicken at any of the Rite Aid stores, contact:

  Mary Sammons, President & Robert Miller CEO
  Rite Aid Corporation PO Box 3165
  Harrisburg, PA 17105B Toll Free: 800 RITE AID (748-3243)
  Thank Rite Aid for promptly removing the rubber chicken from 22 of its Virginia stores. Urge Rite Aid to remove the rubber chicken immediately from all of its stores.