An Ottawa butcher says he regrets putting up a sign demeaning Hillary Clinton's body and making fun of Donald Trump's sexual assault allegations after a social media uproar forced him to take it down.
"I know I shouldn't have put it up in the first place, and I really regret it," said Joel Diener, the owner of Saslove's Meat Market.
"I'm not proud of it. I had a moment of levity today that I thought we could just poke fun of the election itself, not the people. That backfired."
"It may cause a lot of damage to our business. That's for me to deal with, I guess."
The popular Ottawa butcher shop put up a sign offering packages named after the Democratic presidential nominee (though it incorrectly spelled her name) and her Republican competitor, Donald Trump.
The package offered one "small turkey breast," two "big turkey thighs" and one 鈥渓eft wing.鈥�
"Don't believe the price she tells you," the sign said.
It also offered the "Trump Grab a Rump" package, including half price off the rear of a slab of meat, and a turkey with white meat only.
"Priceless!! No taxes!! Why should you pay them when he doesn't?" it said.
"Not trying to be offensive. Just funny!!" was scrawled across the top of the sign outside the shop, as shown in a photo published by the Ottawa Citizen.
A photo of the sign was also posted to the shop's Facebook page.
The sign and the Facebook posting were removed after a few hours on Thursday, at which point they had accumulated a series of negative comments. Some people said they would refuse to shop there in the future.
Diener says he found the Clinton text on the Internet but made up the Trump part himself.
"I didn鈥檛 intend to malign anyone personally. [I was] just laughing at the whole process, which in my mind is a farce," he said.
"I used to put up signs in the past [with] the political overtone to them, and I stopped doing it because it's a changing world."
The photo was posted at a particularly inopportune time given a series of media reports Wednesday night that Trump allegedly sexually assaulted a number of women over more than two decades.
I just realized I missed the "grab a rump" reference. So we're mocking a professional woman's body AND sexual assault. Good times.
鈥� Shannon Proudfoot (@sproudfoot)
"So we're mocking a professional woman's body AND sexual assault. Good times," .
"It's ok to body shame women as long as they're famous?" wrote a commenter on Facebook.
Diener says his phone has been ringing off the hook with complaints.
With files from CTV Ottawa's Michael Woods
