Patty DiRenzo wanted to do something about Urban Stash Spot Clothing, a California-based company that appeared to be glorifying drugs on their clothes.
DiRenzo knew the dangers of drugs firsthand. In 2010 she lost her 26-year-old son, Sal, to a heroin overdose. In the years since then she has become an activist against the heroin epidemic in New Jersey, and decided to let Urban Stash Spot Clothing know that it was inappropriate to glamorize drug use.
“Explain to me how glamorizing drugs on clothes is good???” she wrote in an email, via MyFoxChicago , “I lost my son to drugs and do not understand why you would create clothing that glamorizes them — I will be reaching out to my support groups through social media to fight against your clothing.”
What she got in response was shocking. The company fired back three emails, calling her a “b**ch” and mocking her dead son.
The company wrote:
EMAIL #1: “Buy B**ch help your kid out next time.” EMAIL #2: “#UrbanGangB**ch, don’t be mad at Fields cause ur son made stupid decisions 100.” EMAIL #3: “No one gives a f*** how you lost your son, F*** YOUR SON. I’d kill em myself if he was alive still lol jk you f***ing petty b***h…post this too you f***ing lowlife. You still won’t do a damn thing and you aren’t going to change s**t! You’re as insignificant as a grain of sand so just wash away.”
The emails have now gone viral. After MyFoxChicago picked up the story, it became one of the top-rated posts on Reddit and drew outrage across the internet.
“It was upsetting, I was hurt. I was, literally hurt, I mean, I didn’t know what to do. I was so dumbfounded because I could not believe that a business would operate this way,” DiRenzo explained.
The email seemed to be keeping in the spirit of the company, whose founders met and started the company while in prison.
The company’s website explains the company line.
“ Urban Stash Spot Clothing was a dream that two brothers and a close friend formed while actually in prison paying their debts to the streets. They decided to get their lives on the right path by telling their stories through their designs. Every design you see is based on actual events that they have experienced first hand.
“The name ‘Stash Spot’ came from the question, ‘What is it that every person can relate to, even if they haven’t lived the street life?’ Survival is the answer. Life is all about survival, so what better name for the brand then, Stash Spot – something that every person must have from students to teachers, doctors, lawyers and so on.”
Urban Stash Spot Clothing has defended the emails, writing that “we don’t sell drugs we only put it on clothes we teach kids how to put the drugs down & sell clothes wit drugs on there.” But Patty DiRenzo said she is still hurt, and “dumbfounded” that a business could operate in such a way.
[Image via Instagram]