Attention Eastside Marketplace — shouldn’t this be stocked in the twice-convicted felon aisle? Because your decent law-abiding pasta customers don’t think these jars belong on the same planet as Newman’s Own.
The Associated Press broke the story last month questioning the claim on the label of Buddy’s pasta sauce that sales are “Benefiting Providence School Children.”
. . . for four years, from 2009 to 2012, none of the money made from its sale went to kids, the Associated Press discovered. The sauce, while a promotional vehicle for the ex-felon’s political ambitions, did not benefit “Providence School Kids” in the least. Is that even legal?
None! Zero, zip, nada. It is time for all markets and stores to ask themselves what it means to continue selling this product. If there is not equal space given to the opposing mayoral candidates Dan Harrop and Jorge Elorza, it suggests that your business is actively supporting the candidacy of this twice-convicted felon. HuffPo contacted Eastside Market.
Bob Borges, gourmet manager at Eastside Market in Providence, said the sauce sells well at his store, which goes through about a dozen 12-jar cases a month. He said he thinks first-time purchasers might buy it because they think sales are benefiting children, but they wouldn’t get the repeat sales they get unless it was good. They sell it for $5.69 per jar.
Mr. Borges seems completely comfortable with the deception.
The A.P. report goes on to show that four years in prison have changed nothing about how Buddy operates.
There is also the matter of the charity’s informing the Internal Revenue Service that none of its board members has a family or business relationship with any other. Yet Cianci, his sister Carol Turchetta and his nephew Brad Turchetta are all board members, and he has a business relationship with Charles Mansolillo, the fund’s president and Cianci’s former city solicitor. Again, legal?
Same modus operandi, same cast of characters.