Oddbins manager suspended for Thatcher tweet in “worst possible taste”

Oddbins Wine Merchants has suspended one of its store managers after sending out a tweet promoting discounted champagne soon after news broke of Baroness Thatcher’s death.

About an hour after news broke of Thatcher’s death, a tweet appeared on the Oddbins Crouch End account reading:

“If for any reason, anyone feels like celebrating anything we have Taittinger available at £10 less than usual at £29. Just saying…”

Twitter users swiftly condemned the remarks as “shameless” and “sick”, and the Tweet appears to have been deleted.

An Oddbins spokesperson told LondonlovesBusiness.com: “The tweet in question was made by a member of branch staff without the approval or knowledge of the company’s management. The tweet was completely inappropriate and in the worst possible taste.

“We would like to apologise profusely for the offence it has quite rightly caused. The member of staff responsible has been suspended with immediate effect pending a disciplinary hearing.”

Shameless Oddbins

— Emily Wight (@emily_wight) April 8, 2013

 

The manager of the Crouch End Oddbins, Dave Groves, confessed he was “quite non-plussed about the fuss”, explaining that it was an ill-timed sales promotion.

“We routinely tweet about promotions that we’ve got running but in this case I didn’t realise how it’d play given the recent news”, he told LondonlovesBusiness.com.

Asked why the following message on the Oddbins outlet’s twitter account was a retweet from DJ “London Elektricity” reading “Yippee”, Groves replied: “I don’t know, it’s Monday and the sun is shining.”

However, he declined to answer when it was brought up that Elektricity’s following tweets revolved around Margaret Thatcher and mocking the one time he gave a “sarcastic” vote for her.