Millennium Hotels Under Fire for Iditarod Sponsorship
PETA Protesters Will Tether Themselves to Barrels in Call for Hotel Chain to Cut Ties With Cruel Race
For Immediate Release:
May 22, 2019
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Millennium Hotels and Resorts, whose hotel in Alaska sponsors the Iditarod, will face protesters on the heels of PETA’s first-ever exposé of dog-sledding operations owned by Iditarod mushers. A pack of PETA supporters will descend on the company’s headquarters on Thursday and chain themselves to plastic barrels just like those that dogs who are trained for the Iditarod are chained to—even when the wind chill drops to minus 19 degrees.
When: Thursday, May 23, 12 noon
Where: Millennium Hotels and Resorts’ U.S. headquarters, 1345 28th St. (in front of the “Millennium Hotel” sign on the west side of 28th Street, across from Olson Drive), Boulder
PETA’s exposé also revealed that arthritic, crippled, and injured dogs were denied veterinary care; chained dogs had worn-down, raw, and bloody paw pads from frantically running in tight circles around the barrels; dogs were dragged and injured during training; and one was even killed.
“When dogs used in the Iditarod aren’t being raced until their paws bleed and their bodies break down, they’re left to spin in circles on a chain with no stimulation, no affection, no warmth, and no love,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Millennium Hotels to end its support of this miserably cruel spectacle immediately.”
Following PETA’s appeals to sponsors, Jack Daniel’s, The Coca-Cola Company, Costco, Maxwell House, Nestlé, Pizza Hut, Rite Aid, Safeway, and Wells Fargo all cut ties with the Iditarod.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a supremacist view of the world. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
