Water Bottles Shaped Like 40 Oz Malt Liquor Enrage NYCHA Residents

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One Group Demands The Product Leaves The Shelves

Some New York City Housing residents are pissed off about a water bottle being marketed to them in their Brooklyn neighborhood.

According to New York Daily News, Sons of Anarchy star Theo Rossi and his wife Meghan founded a company called Ounce Water. One of their products sells spring water in a 40-ounce container shaped like malt liquor brands such as Colt 45 and Olde English. These brands are historically sold in Black neighborhoods, and residents of Breukelen Houses are mad that a water bottle is coming in similar packaging.

“In a community that has been ravaged by alcohol and drugs, we are confused as to why someone would create a product that so closely resembles a malt liquor bottle,” members of the activist group Breukelen RISE wrote in a letter to the company. “We cannot get behind this product staying on the shelves in our community.”

Rossi and his wife founded their company with hopes of selling water to the urban community using a hip-hop-influenced marketing campaign. According to Ounce Water’s site, it’s recommended that people get 80 ounces of water a day. By selling their product in 40 oz bottles, the goal was to hit half of people’s targeted requirements.

But the Brooklyn neighborhood wasn’t taking the bait.

“It’s insulting to our intelligence,” said Thora Lashley, a Breukelen Houses resident for more than 50 years. “What’s next, candy corn in a crack vial? Juice in a syringe? We do not want the 1,575 families who live in the Breukelen Houses seeing that in the store.”

Lashley said she’s witnessed countless friends succumb to alcoholism growing up in public housing. She said friends as young as 12 would turn into alcoholics, drinking 40s in the hallways, on stoops, and in courtyards.

“It’s the way they presented it,” Lashley said when speaking about Ounce Water. “We didn’t have problems with Aquafina or Deer Park water because they came in regular bottles. If I was to see a young teenage boy walking around with a 40-ounce bottle of the water, I’d be disgusted and I would go and buy him a different kind of water.”

The outrage of the community led to results, considering the bottles were removed from Canarsie’s Food World Supermarket on E. 107 Street. They were replaced with 20-ounce bottles from Once Water, but this still didn’t impress some residents.

“It leaves a sour taste in my mouth and I’m not going to buy it,” said Lashley.

Rudolph Chase, a substance abuse counselor who lives in the Brooklyn neighborhood, said the bottle was a bad idea.

“Kids like to idolize what they see adults do,” Chase said. “If they see their parents drink a 40, they might buy this water to emulate that experience. Who’s to say they won’t enjoy that experience so much that they try and get the real thing. What does that lead to? Alcoholism.”

What do you think of the 40 oz. H20? Was Ounce Water pandering to a neighborhood or just trying to get a message across?