On behalf of CoolCleveland, our writers, staff and contributors, I personally apologize for an inexcusable and inappropriate post that attempted to promote an event with a poor attempt at humor. 
 
 It is never OK to make light of such serious issues, and I take full and personal responsibility for this post ever being published. 
 
 We apologize to anyone who may have read this egregious post, to victims and survivors, and to the community of Cleveland. When we started CoolCleveland over 16 years ago, it was to help and support the cool events, cool people and cool venues in our region, not to cause further harm and pain. 
 
 We want to make it clear that Townhall is not responsible for any content in the post, and we sincerely apologize to the people involved with Townhall for associating them with this language and sentiment. We have personally apologized to the management at Townhall and are working with them to ensure that they are not further harmed by this post. 
 
 We are committed to doing everything in our power to help right this wrong, although we realize that words have power, and we have violated a trust with our readers and community. We have made a contribution to a non-profit organization that helps survivors and victims, and we are making arrangements for training for our writers, staff and contributors. 
 
 However, I want to reiterate that full responsibility for this issue rests on my shoulders personally. We have made immediate changes to our staffing. Although we had installed safeguards to ensure content review, we have now instituted a more rigorous internal system to ensure that all content published by CoolCleveland meets our standards and continues to help the community and promote the coolness all around us. Because this community is cool. — Thomas Mulready, publisher, CoolCleveland. 
 
 Post categories: ||||| A website promoting events in Cleveland apologized for its “inexcusable and inappropriate” holiday-themed Facebook post that referenced three women who were kidnapped and held captive as sex slaves for a decade. 
 
 “It is never OK to make light of such serious issues, and I take full and personal responsibility for this post ever being published,” CoolCleveland publisher Thomas Mulready wrote in a statement. “We apologize to anyone who may have read this egregious post, to victims and survivors, and to the community of Cleveland. When we started CoolCleveland over 16 years ago, it was to help and support the cool events, cool people and cool venues in our region, not to cause further harm and pain.” 
 
 In a since-deleted post, the website promoted a “gingerbread construction zone” event at the TownHall restaurant on Thursday — by noting the recent housing crisis and then jokingly referencing the infamous “House of Horrors” case that rocked the local community in 2013. 
 
 “Many end up becoming dens for cracker addicts,” the post continued. “In one notorious case, three missing gingerbread women were found held as gingerbread sex slaves for 10 years, while gingerbread police remained baffled … But there is a solution!” 
 
 The post was a clear reference to victims Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus — the three women kidnapped by Ariel Castro and held captive in the monster’s Cleveland home before their daring escape. 
 
 see also Cleveland kidnap survivors recall decade of hellish imprisonment They leaned on each other. Two of the three Cleveland... 
 
 Castro, who was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty, later hanged himself in a prison cell. Castro’s home, where the victims had been chained and brutalized for a decade, was demolished in August 2013. 
 
 Mulready, meanwhile, said “staffing changes” had been made as a result of the post, which TownHall was not associated with in any way, he said. 
 
 “The writer no longer works with CoolCleveland,” Mulready wrote on Facebook. “I take full responsibility for the human error that allowed the post to be published in the first place.” 
 
 The site has since donated to a nonprofit organization that helps survivors and victims and is arranging additional training for its staffers and contributors, Mulready said, but he did not elaborate. 
 
 “However, I want to reiterate that full responsibility for this issue rests on my shoulders personally,” his post continued. “We have made immediate changes to our staffing.” 
 
 Some critics were less than satisfied, however, saying the damage to the restaurant’s reputation was already done. 
 
 “Townhall will [be] taking the fall,” one woman wrote. 
 
 “Not CoolCleveland,” another post read. 
 
 Others called on the website to be more forthright about the donation Mulready mentioned. 
 
 “If you’re making a donation to a nonprofit, you should strongly consider giving to an organization that actually helps women who have been abused,” one comment read. “You can start to earn people’s trust back by being transparent about who you’re giving to.” 
 
 Kayla Barnes, director of communications for TownHall, said the restaurant was completely blindsided by the tone-deaf post. 
 
 “We had no prior knowledge of the article, nor did we approve the article in any way,” Barnes told Cleveland.com. “The moment we saw the post, I personally called CoolCleveland to express the inappropriateness and requested it be taken down immediately.” ||||| CLEVELAND, Ohio — A website promoting events in Cleveland created outrage Monday when a Facebook post about a gingerbread-house-building event at a local restaurant referenced the kidnapping and sexual assault of three women for 10 years. 
 
 The Facebook post was taken down and CoolCleveland publisher Thomas Mulready issued an apology. 
 
 “We apologize to anyone who may have read this egregious post, to victims and survivors, and to the community of Cleveland,” Mulready says in the statement on the CoolCleveland website. “When we started CoolCleveland over 16 years ago, it was to help and support the cool events, cool people and cool venues in our region, not to cause further harm and pain.” 
 
 Controversial Facebook post from CoolCleveland. Facebook 
 
 The post to promote an event Thursday at TownHall restaurant on West 25th Street says the foreclosure crisis resulted in many “empty gingerbread houses” in Cleveland that are dens for “cracker addicts.” It then mentions a “notorious case” of three “missing gingerbread women were found held as gingerbread sex slaves for 10 years." 
 
 The “missing gingerbread women” is a reference to the case involving Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who were held captive by Ariel Castro before they escaped and were rescued in 2013. 
 
 In his statement, Mulready said he took “full and personal responsibility” for the post and called it “inexcusable and inappropriate.” 
 
 Attempts to reach representatives with CoolCleveland were unsuccessful Monday night. But Kayla Barnes, director of communications for TownHall, says in an email that the restaurant was “appalled” by the post. 
 
 “We had no prior knowledge of the article, nor did we approve the article in any way,” Barnes says. “The moment we saw the post, I personally called CoolCleveland to express the inappropriateness and requested it be taken down immediately.” 
 
 In his statement, Mulready says TownHall had nothing to do with the CoolCleveland Facebook post. He also says staff changes already have been made at the website, but he was not specific. 
 
 “Although we had installed safeguards to ensure content review, we have now instituted a more rigorous internal system to ensure that all content published by CoolCleveland meets our standards and continues to help the community and promote the coolness all around us,” Mulready says. 
 
 Mulready says the website has made a contribution to a nonprofit organization that helps survivors and victims. 
 
 The controversial post brought a strong negative response on social media: 
 
 I cannot even with this. How can you be so divorced from your humanity that you think this is funny or cute? These women are alive, could be reading this, and were KIDNAPPED AND ENSLAVED FOR A DECADE in this "cool" city. Disgusting. @CoolCleveland @TOWNHALLOHC https://t.co/NrySfalqAW — Rosa Kovacevich (@rosakova08) December 11, 2018 
 
 Oh my god. That line about the three missing women was in especially poor taste. https://t.co/Etwn4pn8Qj — Ms. Patty Marvel (@PattyMarvel) December 11, 2018 
 
 So @CoolCleveland is marketing Townhall's "family friendly" Gingerbread house event by referencing Ariel Castro? All family events are marketed with rape/drug/sex slave references, right? https://t.co/Ywo9s7YSrq pic.twitter.com/j7f5opeinp — Danielle Capriato (@DCapriato) December 10, 2018 
 
 Meanwhile in Cleveland... @CoolCleveland thought it was cute to announce that a restaurant was holding a gingerbread house-building event by playfully writing about 3 “gingerbread sex slaves” who were held captive for 10 years in an empty gingerbread house pic.twitter.com/73NdB1kZho — Brittany Van Horne (@_brittanyv) December 10, 2018
– A website is apologizing after one of its writers made a very ill-advised holiday joke on Facebook. CoolCleveland, which promotes events in Cleveland, posted an announcement about an upcoming gingerbread house building event and made what appeared to be joking references to Cleveland's "House of Horrors" case in which Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus were held captive by Ariel Castro for a decade, the New York Post reports. Referencing the area's recent housing crisis and resulting empty houses, the now-deleted post said, "Many end up becoming dens for cracker addicts. In one notorious case, three missing gingerbread women were found held as gingerbread sex slaves for 10 years, while gingerbread police remained baffled … But there is a solution!" The restaurant hosting the event was unaware of the post and immediately requested it be taken down, a rep tells Cleveland.com. CoolCleveland has since apologized in a statement in which the publisher called the post "inexcusable and inappropriate," adding, "It is never OK to make light of such serious issues, and I take full and personal responsibility for this post ever being published." In a Facebook post linking to the statement, the website added a comment announcing the writer responsible for the post no longer works for the company. "We apologize to anyone who may have read this egregious post, to victims and survivors, and to the community of Cleveland," the statement continues, adding that CoolCleveland has made a donation to a nonprofit that helpss survivors and victims. "When we started CoolCleveland over 16 years ago, it was to help and support the cool events, cool people and cool venues in our region, not to cause further harm and pain." Cleveland.com has a screenshot of the original post and some of the angry responses. (Another ill-advised holiday post here.)