Bikini Bus Ads Banned in Brooklyn
By CHRIS GLORIOSO wpix.com

8:07 p.m. EDT, June 29, 2010
CROWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. (WPIX)—
Here's a formula for media coverage. Stage a demonstration complete with bikinis, booze, and a lawyer crying Constitutional foul. That was the playbook for makers of Georgi Vodka as they paid a handful of scantily clad babes to rally outside an MTA bus depot on Manhattan's West Side, Monday.

The purpose of the protest, says the vodka company, was to shame the MTA into reversing it's policy of accommodation when religious groups request racy ads be removed from buses in Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods.

At issue in this case are 2 ads featuring vodka bottles nestled next to buxom butts covered by white bikini bottoms. Georgi Vodka distillers say the ad is tasteful and the MTA ban is censorship.

For its part, the MTA declined comment, presumably wishing not to dignify what one insider called a "publicity stunt." The bikini ad ban applies to buses at three depots in Brooklyn which have been accommodating the borough's Hasidic leaders for a decade now.

Vodka makers say the ban is trampling their First Amendment rights. Censorship or not, clearly the bikini blackout has been a gift for Georgi's public relations team. Consider this, you just read five paragraphs about a brand of bottom-shelf vodka your favorite rapper wouldn't be caught dead sipping!