The steamy romance trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey” is certainly spicy, but copies of the series turned burning hot Wednesday night at a Cleveland bar and grill.
Local rock radio DJs Chad Zumock and Alan Cox, who said hordes of people had been calling in to complain about the book, led a burning of the E.L. James novels at a Panini’s restaurant, drawing crowds and just a whiff of controversy.
“We kinda figured it would just be dudes,” Cox told the Daily News. “But then all kinds of people showed up, a woman even showed up with her teenage son.”
People brought out their own copies of the book to set ablaze. Cox said one woman told him to torch her Nook, which he eventually did throw to the flames.
While some local Cleveland stations tried to tease out future censorship trends from the incident, Cox said there were fewer protesters at the event than he anticipated, which he attributes to that fact that most people probably got the joke.
“This isn’t censorship, it’s completely voluntary,” he said. “We weren’t criticizing it from any literary standpoint because that’s not why anyone’s reading it.”
For safety’s sake, the book burners gathered on a sand volleyball pit and had the local fire department present.
“It was smoky, it was something,” said Panini’s manager Kelly McCall, who was present for the burning. “It was more or less men who felt like (the book) was offensive to women, but not in a way that women would think it was offensive.”
McCall, who said the DJs only burned 20 or 25 paperback copies of the book, seemed ambiguously amused by the whole ordeal.
“It wasn’t like in the movies,” she said. “I thought it was a little strange, but I mean we’re all about getting customers in here and it did draw a crowd,” she said.
Representatives from “Fifty Shades” publisher Random House said they had no comment on the Cleveland conflagration.
