Is There Bad Influence In the Vancouver Riots Spa Campaign?

This is one of the weirdest and maybe most negative stories to hit the NHL airwaves since the Vancouver riots after Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Eccotique Spa and Salon, a Vancouver-area spa treatment place, is offering a $50 gift card to eligible Vancouver riot members. However, there is a condition: The recipients must turn themselves in for their role in the riots.

"We'll get them nicely manicured for a court date or prison or whatever punishment they're going to get but we want to make sure they're going to get punished for what they did," spa owner Milajne Soligo said, according to The Star of Toronto.

The riots have had a brutal impact on the downtown Vancouver business and the spa owner wants to make sure they pay for what they did. Some restrictions away, as one might expect when receiving a prize. The candidate must show valid photo ID, explain his role in the riots, then apply his fingerprints to a certificate, which must be taken to the police.

So far, no one has taken up on the offer by the spa and some Canadians are pretty upset about the spa using the riots as a playful market campaign. Charles Gauthier, a worker with the Business Improvement Association, thinks it's "not something we'd recommend -- prizes for people to come forward."

Soligo isn't surprised that some reactions to the campaign have been negative. But believes that the larger goal is for people to turn themselves in for what they did. The whole point, she said, was to "coax them into some confessions, that's the whole point of the campaign."

Now although the spa seems like they're having something going, it just seems like a one-way ticket to long-term jail. I understand their direction and their idea, but this is something that just doesn't make sense at all. You're giving people a reward just for turning themselves in. Actually, it just seems like a trap for people to confess and then go to jail for an incredibly long period of time. It doesn't seem worth it to use this kind of ad to get people to turn themselves in and get the reward. It is negative and it seems like it's bad infleunce. I don't believe you should get people to turn themselves in by making an offer up for grabs.

Whether or not the ad is a good idea, it's already out there. It's driving criticism and it's making more people not confess to these riots. Whether or not it was Canucks fans or fans alike, I think they should turn themselves in, but I don't think an advertisement is a great way to get them to confess. I hope this wasn't you, puckheads, because a lot of good property was damaged thanks to violence that shouldn't have happened in the first place.