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Jimmy John’s is in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons. On Friday, August 23, the sandwich chain began trending with the hashtag “#BoycottJimmyJohns” after an old photo of the owner posing with a dead elephant on a hunt began to once again make the rounds.
The owner, John Liautaud, posed with multiple animals on hunts much to the dismay of animal lovers and animal rights activists.
The photo os Liautaud and a dead elephant resurfaced thanks to the Twitter account “Brother Nature” which called for the boycott of Jimmy John’s.
Other photos showed the owner with a dead rhinoceros and jaguar.
“”The owner of Jimmy Johns is a repeat offender,” the tweet sharing additional photos read. “Feel free to stop buying his sandwiches and funding his inhumane exploits.”
Another user wrote: “Will never buy a Jimmy Johns. Would only think about him killing a magnificent elephant. I’ll never get that out of my mind. I’ll think about it every time I drive by a JJ joint. I’ll get sick to my stomach when I see the logo now.”
Oh, and let’s not forget the photo of Liautaud laying naked on a dead shark.
The old photo has reportedly gone viral multiple times, including in April of this year, 2017, and even earlier than that, according to Newsweek.
“Few times a year this pic of the founder of Jimmy Johns goes viral. It almost always starts trending and everyone is shocked! Tons of retweets,” New York Magazine and Huffington Post contributor Yashar Ali wrote on Twitter. “But this pic is from years ago and, meanwhile, [elephants] are facing a real crisis & when people tweet about that, it gets little attention”
Despite the fact that the photo is years old, it continues to spark outrage every time it resurfaces and goes viral.
You can see additional comments from the “#BoycottJimmyJohns” hashtag below.
The Jimmy John’s franchise was founded by John Liautaud in Champaign, Illinois back in 1983. The restaurant chain has locations in all states except Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. While their sandwiches are nothing spectacular, they are most known for their fast delivery.
