Graphic content warning: This video contains a simulation of a woman’s throat being slit.
On Monday morning, the new Raising Cane’s at 7000 Hollister Avenue in Goleta drew a large crowd of community members and Dos Pueblos High School students for their grand opening. The celebration featured a DJ, appearances from Dos Pueblos’ cheer team, and hordes of people lined up as early as 8 in the morning — and some who had camped out the night before — for a chance to win free Cane’s chicken for a year.
To open the event, the restaurant gave a thousand-dollar check to Dos Pueblos High’s activities and athletics programs. Then, people waited in anticipation as Cane’s called winning raffle numbers and 20 free-chicken-winners ran through a line of screaming cheerleaders.
The music pumping from the restaurant’s patio also served as an attempt to drown out screaming protesters from PETA who had put on their own demonstration on the nearby sidewalk. Attempting to highlight the brutality behind fast food chains such as Cane’s, one protester hung herself upside down in a bloodied outfit while another mimed slitting her throat. The reenactment was meant to invoke sympathy for the slaughter of chickens. However, with the restaurant’s speakers facing directly at the protesters, the performance did not seem to cut through the crowd’s excitement.
