Billboards Draw Ire of Cancer Patients : Advertising: Popeyes Chicken orders signs taken down after complaints that an intended joke is offensive.

The owners of Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits have learned a lesson: There are some things you just don’t joke about.

In response to consumer complaints, the chain of Cajun-style chicken restaurants is pulling down billboards with the slogan: “The Best Breasts in Southern California Without Plastic Surgery.”

“Irregardless of whether I was a cancer victim or not, this cheapens women,” said Carol Forhan, a member of a breast-cancer survivors group called Ladies of Courage in Lancaster. Forhan complained to the company Monday after seeing the billboard near her church, another church and a nursery school.

On Tuesday, after half a dozen complaints from breast cancer victims, the company began to take down more than two dozen signs bearing the same message.

Joe Scafido, vice president of marketing for Popeyes in Atlanta, said he was surprised that the advertisement drew such strong opposition.

“We thought we were just poking fun,” Scafido said. “We were just looking for a humorous spin. A lot of people in Southern California have plastic surgery.”

The billboards are part of an advertising campaign designed to introduce more than 80 new Popeyes restaurants to the Southland. Before February, there were 16 Popeyes in Southern California. But the company’s purchase of the Pioneer Chicken restaurant chain in the last few months has made the Los Angeles area the most Popeyes-dense in the country, with more than 90 from Santa Ana to Lancaster.

The advertising campaign, and the move into Southern California, coincides with a national push to update the 22-year-old company’s image. Marketing directors have replaced the restaurants’ lava rock exteriors with stucco and switched gaudy reds and oranges to contemporary grays and blues.

Of 100 billboards, 26 carried the breast braggadocio.

In addition to replacing the billboards in question, which have been up about a week and a half, the company has offered billboard space to the Central Los Angeles Chapter of the American Cancer Society to use in October to coincide with National Breast Cancer Month.

“We certainly did not mean to offend anyone,” said Sherri O’Riley, field marketing manager for Popeyes in Phoenix. “We were trying to extend our goodwill to the community.”

But several women lunching at a Popeyes in Chatsworth on Tuesday said the message was no way to attract customers.

“I wouldn’t think of putting breasts with chicken in that manner,” said Aleta Williams, 29, who had not seen the billboard. “It’s kind of offensive.”

Jennifer Harrod, 20, a student at Cal State Northridge, said the billboard mystified her, although that didn’t stop her from swinging by the restaurant for lunch.

“I’m not going to boycott them,” she said, waiting for her order. “But I don’t know who they are trying to attract with a sign like that.”