‘Pig’ allegedly written on box leads to Facebook frenzy for East Brunswick restaurant

EAST BRUNSWICK - A pizza shop that was badly damaged by a blaze two years ago is again under fire — this time the heat is coming from a to-go box.

On Friday, a post started circulating on Facebook claiming that a uniformed East Brunswick police officer went into Mancini Pizza sometime last week and, while waiting for her food, saw an employee allegedly write "Pig" on a pizza box.

The pizza shop owner, however, said the entire incident was a misunderstanding and is upset that people would write his business off based on a social media post.

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"It's coming from random people who are writing these allegations and it's not true," Frankie Mancini said. "We aren't those type of people. We love cops. We wave them in."

Mancini said he has friends and family who are police officers and that several members of law enforcement frequent his pizza shop and have good relationships with his employees.

As of Saturday afternoon, at least 86 people had shared the post on Facebook, which also instructs people to boycott the pizzeria.

"Last week a uniformed East Brunswick Officer went into Mancini Pizza to pick up lunch. This pizzeria is located at the corner of Rt 18 and Tices Ln. While the officer was waiting for the food to be prepared, an employee wrote "Pig" on the pizza box and displayed it to customers inside the pizzeria as entertainment," according to the post circulating the social media website. "The officer called the employee out for this behavior which prompted the owner to become involved."

The post continued: "The owner defended his employee by stating the word written on the pizza box was "pizza", not "pig". Obviously this defense made no sense. Unfortunately, the owner would not reproduce or give the officer this box (because it said pig!!)."

It's unclear where the original post started, but as of around 1:15 p.m. Saturday, the East Brunswick Police Benevolent Association posted a statement on its Facebook account in support of the unnamed officer.

"While waiting for her food to be prepared, an incident occurred where an employee used a pizza box to transcribe a derogatory comment directed toward the officer," the statement read. "After confronting the employee, the officer left without reimbursement or the food she purchased. The East Brunswick PBA fully supports the officer involved and is troubled over this unprovoked and unsettling incident."

The original post also stated that the "East Brunswick PBA is asking for a boycott of Mancini Pizza" and that the PBA will purportedly be returning any donation from the shop.

The post referred to the Facebook campaign as a "social media blitz" and instructed Facebook users to "pass this along and more importantly, stay out of Mancini Pizza."

The East Brunswick PBA did not return calls or emails seeking further comment. The East Brunswick Police Department did not return multiple calls and emails seeking comment.

People also began taking to review sites, such as Yelp.com and Google reviews, to leave unfavorable reviews based on the pizza box allegations. On Saturday afternoon, Yelp issued an alert on the Mancini Pizza page and said that the business was being monitored by Yelp's support team for content related to media reports.

Mancini said the incident stemmed from a misunderstanding regarding the markings the pizzeria employees use while preparing orders.

"Every pizza box, or every order, has a number on it and a marking of what the pizza is when it comes out," he explained. "So, if it's a plain pie, we put 'P.' If it's a margarita pie we put 'M.'"

He said that the police officer, who remains unidentified in the Facebook posts, saw a pizza box containing a plain slice of pizza and garlic twists, which had a 'P' written on it for the plain slice and a squiggly symbol to represent the garlic twists.

"The officer thought that was her order," Mancini said. "Meanwhile, she ordered a panini, which goes in a single bag. It doesn't go in a box."

Mancini then claimed that the officer "started yelling, saying, 'What did you write?'"

He explained that his brother, who was working at the pizza shop, told the officer that the box did not contain her food and showed it to her. Her panini was still in the oven, he said.

Mancini said the officer agreed, and said "OK" when she was showed the box containing the pizza and garlic twists, but then she became agitated and turned her attention to one of the delivery drivers.

Mancini said that the officer asked the delivery driver, "What are you staring at?"

"She carried on with my delivery driver," Mancini claimed. "Then my brother said, 'I need you to understand this wasn't your food.'"

Mancini said he remembered the officer responding, "I'm having a bad day, just give me my food."

In its statement on Facebook, the East Brunswick PBA said that the "officer refutes the claims made by Mancini Pizza regarding the matter and we stand by her account of the event. We consider this to be an affront to the officer involved, the East Brunswick Police Department, and the entire law enforcement community."

Joseph Bahgat, an attorney at the Philadelphia-based Privacy Firm who specializes in law relating to the First Amendment, defamation and the internet, said that he became interested in the Mancini Pizza allegations after seeing the post on Facebook.

He said that the Facebook posts calling for a boycott is what made him stop by Mancini Pizza for lunch on Saturday.

"I saw the boycott on Facebook and I thought, 'This is terrible,'" he said. "I feel bad for these guys — first of all I don't even know what happened — but even if they did do the worst that they're accused of doing, that's their First Amendment right to do that."

He said that this rationalization is backed up by the fact that the police officer didn't do anything. If there was wrongdoing, Bahgat explained, the officer would have given the employees a ticket or issued them a summons.

Bahgat, who used to live in East Brunswick and previously served as a township firefighter, said it doesn't appear that Mancini has the grounds for a defamation lawsuit relating to the individual Facebook posts, as long as they are opinion-based, but the bigger issue is the PBA. If the PBA is behind the boycott, he said, Mancini's would likely have a claim against the PBA.

He also said there could be an upside to the proliferation of social media posts.

"There's no such thing as bad publicity," he said. "There are a lot of other people that will support them."

Mancini, however, said he doesn't understand the Facebook campaign.

"They don't even know us," he said. "They don't know how we treat police officers. We treat them with the utmost respect."

In regards to the boycott, he said it was causing him a lot of stress and uneasiness.

"I can't sleep," Mancini said. "This is my livelihood, this is my family. This is what we've worked so hard for."

Staff Writer Nick Muscavage: 908-243-6615; ngmuscavage@gannettnj.com