Neighbors cry 'fowl' over bare-breasted billboard

Touting the "Best breasts in the West," a billboard for Joe Bob's Chicken in Washoe Valley had neighbors a little hot under the collar Monday because of a cartoon chicken with a woman's breasts.

"It's very offensive," said Cattleman's restaurant office manager Roxanne Joseph-Pina. The privately owned billboard sits directly behind Cattleman's restaurant. "We are a family restaurant. This just does not fit in with what we are about."

"Isn't there a league of decency anymore?" asked Chip Garofalo, owner of Nevada Lynn Emporium, about 250 feet from the billboard. Garofalo's business hosts a pumpkin patch in October and he is concerned about children seeing the bare-chested billboard. "Either Joe Bob's is a scumbag joint or not."

Joe Bob's owner Brad Herndon halfheartedly defended his topless chicken posted on the billboard Saturday and says he intentionally picked the location somewhat obscured by a large tree.

"It's just kind of experimental. We were going to gauge the public's reaction when the leaves fall off."

Herndon said if the billboard, which promotes Joe Bob's restaurant on Hot Springs Road, truly offends anyone he will consider taking it down and said he would take calls from the community on whether it should stay or go.

"But it's our fun logo. Its been our logo for 10 years," he said.

Joseph-Pina hopes to have the 10-foot-tall topless chicken removed from the billboard.

"Or at the least put a bikini top on it," she said.