The Wednesday #KNOTINDC rally outside &pizza’s location on U Street. | Emily Venezky/Eater District activists, council members, and chefs speak out against the marketing campaign, calling it tone-deaf and disrespectful. “We have a lot of people that have good pizza that are not racists,” Ronald Moten proclaimed at a rally outside &pizza’s U Street location, calling for D.C. residents to boycott the local pizza chain. Ever since the brand unveiled controversial “Marion Berry Knots” over the weekend, which are clearly themed around former mayor Marion Barry’s drug arrest, there’s been pushback from D.C. council members, activists, and chefs. It all started at a reveal party at Hotel Hive this past Sunday, where &pizza promised the reveal of a “new, secret menu item inspired by none other than the city’s vibrant political scene” in invites sent to the press and the brand’s local customers. The pizza chain unveiled a new dessert menu item, the Marion Berry Knots, that use the same pizza dough as the other knots on their menu and obviously reference former D.C. mayor Marion Barry, the four-term “lifetime mayor” and former Ward 8 council member. The marketing of the new knots could have just playfully spotlighted marionberries, the same way local ice cream shops and breweries reference the D.C. political figure, but instead advertisements for the knots focused a little too heavily on the powdered sugar stacked on the new dessert. &pizza One of the ads for the Marion Berry Knots released by &pizza. &pizza The decorations at the new knots release party alluded to cocaine use. “The Marion Berry Knots have enough powdered sugar that will have customers bumping elbows to order and even force the DEA to look twice,” the release read, referencing the Drug Enforcement Agency in a not-so-subtle dig at Marion Barry’s crack cocaine arrest in 1990, which led to a possession conviction and six months in prison. Mentions of “enough powder for you and your friends,” how the “knots will blow you away,” and pictures of little piles of powdered sugar on mirrors on social media drove home the dig at the former mayor. On Monday, At-Large D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson said the marketing was “tone deaf and hella disrespectful.” By Tuesday, Ward 8 council member Trayon White called for a boycott of the brand for the “shameless and tasteless exploitation of Marion S. Barry’s legacy.” “I just think it’s racist. In this city, it is outrageously racist. You can print that. It’s racist and disrespectful,” Cora Masters Barry, Barry’s widow, told DC News Now. David Burns, the new CEO hoping to change up &pizza, recognized in the original release that the new dessert may “cross the lines of having too much fun,” in another double-edged pun. The chain has not responded to calls to apologize, take the knots off their menu, or speak with Black community leaders about how to better represent the District. Reps have also not responded to requests for comment from Eater. Burns tried to brush off the controversy in a cheeky statement to the Washington Post and Washingtonian Tuesday. “We’re talking about a marionberry, that’s spelled with an ‘e,’” the statement said. “We stuff that into a knot, drizzle it with icing and then top it with powdered sugar. It’s delicious — we can’t wait for D.C. to try it.” &pizza Another marketing image of the Marion Berry Knots with a pile of powdered sugar. Chef Erik Bruner-Yang, who came up with the original garlic knots with a team of local chefs while he was the company’s executive corporate chef in 2019, slammed the CEO as he “doubles down on the campaign.” The Maketto owner told Eater that the publicity stunt was “to get people talking about a brand that has been dead in the water for the last couple of years.” “I am upset, regardless of my previous employment, because it’s racist and insensitive to the history of Washington, D.C.,” Burner-Yang said on Tuesday. “I feel bad for all the hard working employees past and present.” By Wednesday, a rally and press conference was held by Don’t Mute DC’s Ronald Moten and more local activists, under the hashtag #KNOTINDC. He started off the rally by coming after Burns, referencing the CEO’s affinity for Elon Musk and calling him a “white supremacist.” He said the marketing ploy made Barry’s widow cry, and listed off the accomplishments of the former mayor, including starting the ongoing summer youth employment program named after him and backing the Million Man March. Mostly, Moten urged D.C. residents to not support any of the 10 outposts of the pizza chain in D.C. “We just want you to know that we’re coming as united front. This ain’t one person. This ain’t two persons. This not black. This not white. This is Washington, D.C. and we here to tell you: not in D.C.,” Moten said.