Thanks to D.C. stunt, pizza company offers up 23-cent pies in Ohio

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Maybe Cleveland Cavaliers fans can hope for cheap gas if an oil company insults All-Star LeBron James.

Lines were so long Thursday at some of the 86 Papa John's stores offering a large, one-topping pizza for 23 cents that police stood nearby to make sure people didn't get unruly.

The Louisville, Ky.-based company agreed to the offer after a franchisee in Washington, D.C., made T-shirts calling star LeBron James a "crybaby." The shirts referred to James' complaints about hard fouls during a playoff series victory over Washington. The company also will donate $10,000 to the Cavaliers Youth Fund.

The 23-cent price of a pizza is a homage to James' jersey number.

"It's a recession busting offer, and we certainly hope we have made it up to Cleveland," Tim North, vice president of the company's northeast division, told WEWS-TV.

There were a few headaches, mostly complaints about long waits and line-cutting.

In University Heights, an auxiliary police officer tried to settle a line-cutting complaint without riling either side. In Springfield Township outside Akron, police said there was an argument between two people in line, but no one was hurt and there were no arrests.

Locations were making 300 pizzas an hour to satisfy lines in which customers waited 90 minutes, North said.

You can't beat 23-cent pizzas. (AP)

Each Papa John's location offering the deal in the Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and Youngstown areas was prepared to sell more than 900 pies. Outlets were ordered to close early if, as expected, they ran out of pizzas.

Police said a regional manager for Papa John's asked for officers to help close its Columbus stores, WBNS-TV in Columbus reported. In Akron, one location gave rain checks good for one week. "We're certainly a bit surprised about how darn popular this is," North told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

In suburban Cleveland, people stood wrapped in blankets outside a store in Westlake and the line was two blocks long in University Heights.

"I did it for the principle of it. The principle of it is he's not a crybaby and Papa John's should not have gotten into it," Jennie Moore, 54, of University Heights, said as she waited for a pepperoni pizza.

Randall Hunter, 50, from Cleveland Heights, spent most of his four-hour split between bus driving shifts waiting for his pepperoni pizza. He defended James and what the All-Star forward said were flagrant fouls he received in the Washington series.