NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — It’s been the talk of the town all week and even made national headlines when New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick announced that rats were getting into the marijuana in the evidence room and “getting high” in the infested NOPD headquarters. Now, Dirty Coast is poking fun at the rats with a new t-shirt.
“The rats are eating our marijuana, they’re all high,” NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said during a meeting earlier this week.
Once Dirty Coast heard what NOPD’s chief said about the “high” rats at NOPD headquarters, the t-shirt shop knew it needed to make a tee referencing the unintended joke.
“The shirt says, ‘NOLA Rats, they’re all high’ with a silly little rat in the middle. He has a nice traffic cone hat on, and it looks like he was doing what they were saying,” said Dirty Coast Director of Product Development and Marketing/Social Media Cat St. Amant.
“We went with something retro, fun, and cartoonish,” she continued.
She says bluntly they had a feeling the new rats shirt would be a hit.
“Although it’s amazing to live here, it’s not always easy to live here, so finding the humor in some of the things that go on is a good way to cope and have community together,” she said.
Sales for the new New Orleans rats shirts are high.
“It is selling really well. I think we are surprised at how quickly it was selling. The only ones that have sold like this or got this attention were all sports-related,” she said.
The new shirt isn’t the only time Dirty Coast has poked fun at living here in New Orleans.
They have a shirt, which reads, “Turn on the Pumps,” poking fun at the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans’ flooding issues and a pothole-themed shirt making fun of the pothole problem on our city streets.
From potholes to pot, the shirt of the moment is hitting close to home.
“Someone reached out on Instagram and said they actually work for the NOPD, so I’m glad to see they are seeing the humor in our silly little shirt,” St. Amant said.
Pre-sales for the shirt end this weekend.
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