DC pizza chain apologies for food named after late Mayor Marion Barry, removes dessert from menu

A Washington, D.C., pizza chain has apologized for naming a dessert after the city's late Mayor Marion Barry that alluded to his cocaine use, and removed the food from the menu. 

In 1991, Barry was arrested in an FBI sting operation for smoking crystalized, or crack, cocaine with a woman. The incident in a luxury D.C. hotel was captured on video. Barry was sentenced to six months in prison for misdemeanor cocaine possession. He argued the arrest and conviction was a "setup."

Earlier this week, &pizza announced a dessert called Marion Berry Knots and used marketing tactics such as the dessert would "blow you away" and "KNOTS SO GOOD IT’S LIKELY A FELON."

At first &pizza stood by the knots despite backlash and D.C. officials calling for a boycott, but earlier this week the chain's CEO Mike Burns apologized. 

"Candidly, we made a mistake," Burns said in a statement on Wednesday, according to local media. "And for that, we sincerely apologize."

He added that the dessert would be removed immediately. 

"While humor was our intent, it was regrettably off the mark," he said. "The parody of the former Mayor and portrayal of substance abuse was wrong."