It’s a bird-brained marketing campaign.
A luxe Big Apple-based cannabis dispensary announced it would be launching a fleet of 20 courier pigeons to deliver gram-sized bags to New Yorkers — but the feathered service is totally phony, The Post has learned.
The Travel Agency unveiled the winged “delivery service,” purportedly set to launch in Manhattan and Brooklyn by 2026, last week, including with a slew of odd videos posted to social media.
“As The Travel Agency, it’s only natural we’d explore all modalities of travel for our delivery service, even pigeons,” Arana Hankin-Biggers, company co-founder, said in a press release Friday.
“Being in NYC, we thought there’s no better courier than the ever-present and beloved pigeon.”
Viral videos from the agency spotlighted the alleged feathery fleet’s Downtown Brooklyn coop, as well as its handlers and training protocols — which entailed “walking [a pigeon] on the delivery path so it knows where to fly.”
Promotional posters outside the company’s Union Square shop also advertised “cannabis carrier pigeons” – and one viral clip posted to the What Is New York account showed pigeons wearing tiny backpacks near a dispensary location, appearing to confirm the presence of the working birds.
Several New York-based publications, like Time Out, Brooklyn Eagle and Fox 5 New York, reported on the harebrained plan.
But sources familiar with the matter revealed to The Post Monday that the bizarre scheme was actually a marketing stunt.
Still, animal activists had their feathers ruffled over the phony ad campaign, which touted a multi-day trial run with pigeons “completing symbolic delivery routes under handler supervision” and earning an “official humane treatment certification.”
“I’m glad to know that it’s not real, but it’s still very upsetting to even conceptualize a campaign like this, centering on exploiting pigeons,” said Megan Walton, of Duchess-County based Pigeons for Miles avian sanctuary.
Walton said the gimmick left her questioning what was real and what was chicken scratch.
“Even if it is a joke … how long were these pigeons subject to this campaign? How many days were they taken away from their family flock to be used for this?” she asked.
Walton said she was also concerned about where the pigeons came from and what happened to them after the campaign was over – calling to mind cases such as the adorable rabbits abandoned after disgraced faux heiress Anna Delvey’s August photoshoot.
“I just don’t see the humor in putting pigeons in the center of a campaign like this, to almost mock the fact that they used to be so heavily exploited,” she said.
“People don’t even really pay them any mind anymore, except to think about of other ways to exploit them.”
The Travel Agency didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
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