NAMES IN THE NEWS : Sheen Joins Folgers Boycott

Actor Martin Sheen urged a supermarket chain to boycott Folgers coffee to persuade Procter & Gamble to stop buying beans from war-torn El Salvador.

Sheen joined a demonstration in Beverly Hills Tuesday by about three dozen people outside a shareholders meeting of the Arden supermarket chain.

The boycott was started in November by peace organizations to protest the slayings in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests. Salvadoran military officers have been implicated in the killings.

“My country should not be funding the killers of the Jesuit priests with our tax dollars or our consumer dollars,” Sheen said.

An Arden spokesman, Ernest Klinger, said the company would continue to stock Folgers to give consumers a full selection.

Don Tassone of P&G;, which makes Folgers, called the boycott “preposterous.” He said that P&G; buys coffee from at least 30 countries and that the Salvadoran product amounts to less than 2% of the coffee in Folgers.