Canterbury brewery owner resigns from company after offensive social media post

The owner and director of a beer brewing company under fire after an offensive online post about Māori has resigned.

Members of the beer industry have been severing ties with Eagle Brewing and Kaiapoi’s Port & Eagle Brewpub owner David Gaughan for more than a year over alleged racist and sexist comments.

But backlash against Gaughan’s business exploded after he called Māori the “scurge [sic] of New Zealand” on Facebook after “a few drinks” last week and the post being widely circulated.

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Marilyn Yosores, co-owner of Eagle Brewing and Gaughan’s partner, informed shareholders of the company – Golden Eagle Brewery Ltd – via email that Gaughan would be resigning his position as owner/director and transferring his nearly 75 per cent shares to her. She currently holds 17 per cent of the shares also.

“Due to the pressures of what has happened and how it has affected business Dave will be leaving the business altogether,” her email says.

Dave Gaughan told RNZ Yosores would be appointed as director and she had also decided to end their marriage.

He told Stuff on Sunday sales had gone “through the roof" following the post.

The brand will change to distance itself from Eagle, and the search for a new brewer and sales rep has begun, it says.

His post on Facebook was a “car crash post”, done at the wrong end of the day and under some mental stress and anxiety, Yosores says.

The last few days had been “immensely challenging for all of us”.

Gaughan apologised following the backlash for his “completely unacceptable” comments and said he hoped his business would be given a second chance.

There was talk of his resignation initially, but then he said staff backed him staying in the business “wholeheartedly” following a busy weekend of sales.

Local Māori were urged to boycott the business by their tribe leader, with Ngāi Tūāhuriri upoko (head) Te Maire Tau saying Gaughan did not reflect the multicultural town of Kaiapoi, but that he had been “exposed for what he is”.

Ekant Veer, a marketing professor at the University of Canterbury, earlier told Stuff it was possible for businesses to survive scandals, but it usually required severing itself from the person responsible.

“If something else happens now from Eagle Brewing, that is likely to have a much more exponential effect,” he said.

Yosores refused to comment when approached by Stuff.

RNZ also reports Gaughan will meet with She Is Not Your Rehab founders Matt and Sarah Brown – of an anti-violence movement aiming to break cycles of domestic violence – and a team of educators to have a hui and kōrero about racial bias, and to learn about Māori culture.