Thousands Planned A BBQ Outside The Home Of The Neighbor-Suing Vegan

The vegan who sued her neighbors for cooking meat in their backyard probably didn't expect this to happen. Even though the courts in Australia tossed out her lawsuit, Cilla Carden, who resides in Perth, Western Australia and eats a vegan diet, certainly tried to sue her neighbors because she couldn't stand the smell of grilling meat when she was in her backyard (via Insider). Now that the lawsuit part of the story is over for now, her neighbors and more than 3,000 of their closest "friends" got busy planning a massive BBQ outside of her house, just to further annoy her — but it was ultimately not meant to be (via New York Post).

Carden said that the smell of her neighbors and their BBQ was bad enough that it affected her life to the point where she was constantly upset and had trouble sleeping. "All I can smell is fish," she complained. In addition to the smell of cooking meat, she also complained that she couldn't deal with her neighbors' cigarette smoking, or the sounds of their children playing basketball.

While the State Administrative Tribunal and the Supreme Court of Western Australia dismissed her case and denied her appeal, she states that she's determined to keep fighting (via 9News). 

However, since her lawsuit made the news recently, a Facebook group popped up that attracted around 3,000 people who planned to hold a massive BBQ outside her home next month. The event description read, "Don't let Cilla destroy a good old Aussie tradition," and even went so far as to promise to help her "get some pork on her fork."

These grand plans were kiboshed, though, once Carden and her lawyer got wind of the revenge BBQ event. Her attorney, John Hammond, posted to the event and warned, "Any person who seeks to attend Ms. Carden's property on Saturday October 19, 2019 or at any other time in relation to this event or matter will be referred to the WA police on the ground of trespass."

Not willing to risk it, event organizer Bailey Mason noted that the event was far too big of a logistical nightmare, and that he doesn't condone any harassment of Carden, and doesn't wish for anyone to trespass upon her property. The event has since been deleted and is no longer planned, but the dust-up from her lawsuit and the resulting news coverage isn't likely to die down anytime soon. 

Australians aren't exactly known for being vegans — just take a glance at a scene from the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee where the main characters are busy grilling up a goanna (that's a big ol' lizard, for those of us stateside) for dinner, and Dundee himself asks, "How do you like your goanna? Medium? Well done?" The actor who played Dundee, Paul Hogan, starred in a series of commercials in the mid-to-late '80s for the Australian Tourist Commission, targeted for audiences in the U.S., that cemented the idea of "shrimp on the barbie" in the minds of Americans.  

Veganism, as a whole, does continue to grow in Australia as the country's inhabitants are buying less red meat and buying more meat substitutes, reports ABC News. However, the country still ranks up in the world's top five countries for eating beef, accounting for around 57 pounds (26 kilos) per person in 2017, plus around 20 pounds (9 kilos) of lamb on top of that. Current recommendations in the country note that people should stick to a total of 50 pounds (23 kilos) of combined lean red meat per year, so Aussies are definitely overshooting that total by quite a bit. 

Veganism is not without its critics, though — and some are more vocal than others. Gordon Ramsay, for example, famously known for speaking his mind, responded to a tweet about vegan lasagna saying he was a member of PETA — "people eating tasty animals." As expected, this set off a firestorm of comments and retweets dragging the cantankerous chef in the dirt, including PETA themselves, who shamed him for "mocking the future vegan we're betting you one day become."

This is not the first time, though, that he's found himself on the carnivorous side of the road across from unhappy vegans. In 2008, Paul McCartney, a vegan himself, called Ramsay "stupid" for saying that he'd electrocute his children if they told him they were vegan (via The Telegraph). 

As for Carden and her crusade against her neighbors, it's hard to say how that situation will ultimately resolve, as the courts didn't bother validating her lawsuit. Chances are, she'll probably continue to be unhappy when her neighbors grill out, and it's also likely that they're not really all that thrilled with her "fun police" attitude. The 3,000-person strong BBQ, though, is not going to happen.