Music

Site of infamous Great White nightclub fire is a Pokemon Go hotspot

by Jeremy Mersereau

image assets: A. Aleksandravicius / Shutterstock.com

The hyper-popular location-based augmented reality game, Pokémon Go, has already caused some location-based controversy since its release last month, and it seems like the game is still determined in its quest to catch all potential bad press.

The relatives of the 100 people killed in the 2003 Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island are angered that the site of the disaster is a designated Pokéstop within the game. The location in West Warwick, RI, is currently host to an under-construction memorial to the victims of the fire, and now also to a number of intrepid Pokémon trainers.

The 2003 fire started when pyrotechnics for Great White ignited foam placed in the roof of the Station nightclub, killing 100 people and injuring a further 200.

“That is just so disrespectful,” survivor Victoria Potvin Eagan told the AP. “Graveyards and memorial sites especially are meant to honor and respect a certain person or event, not to make light of it.”

The game also adds insult to injury, albeit through no fault of Niantic Labs, Go‘s developer: Chris Fontaine, whose son Mark was killed, was not happy when he learned that the description of the site inside the game (sourced from users, not written by Niantic) incorrectly states that the fire killed 200, not 100.

Though Niantic has yet to comment or remove the Rhode Island stop, they’ve previously acquiesced to public pressure and removed stops from the Hiroshima memorial and the U.S. Holocaust museum, so this stop may follow.

[H/T The Hollywood Reporter]