Via Facebook.

Update: Co-owner Tristan Magee said he’s made an official apology and feels “absolutely horrible” about the Facebook post. “I certainly don’t want to belittle the very serious problem of homelessness in our city,” he told DCist in an email. He adds that all proceeds from this Friday night will be donated to Joseph’s House, which provides end-of-life care to the homeless. “It’s a great way for us all to put our money where our mouth is and actually do something to help, and like I said, we’re donating all of the proceeds so people won’t be supporting The High Dive by coming out,” Magee wrote. “We’re sorry for coming off like complete assholes.”

Original:

The High Dive, a new “dive” bar in Adams Morgan, officially opened last night. And they thought that a good way to promote the new joint would be a joke about people sleeping on the street.

“People are camping out for #thehighdive grand opening!” they wrote earlier this month as a caption to a photo posted on Facebook of a man who appears passed out on the pavement in front of the bar.

Eventually the Facebook hordes took notice and pointed out the very obvious.

“Not only is it insensitive and really bad marketing its not funny. Failure on all fronts.”

“Sounds like a classy place with a classy social media team!”

“What a thoughtless joke.”

“This is a super weird way to promote a new business.”

The bar attempted to justify and explain the photo in posts on Facebook and Twitter today.

“We’re sorry you guys are so offended. He’s not asleep though, he’s posing for a picture that was his suggestion. And then we bought him lunch. So no, we aren’t ashamed of this post,” they wrote in a comment on the page.

An hour later, they posted something that sort of inches closer to an actual apology.

“We’re sorry for making a post that was in bad taste. I’ll say again, we chatted with the man, he said he was camping out for our opening and to take his picture. This was obviously a bad judgement, but we’re in no way anti-homeless, as that would be completely insane.”

Yes, that would be insane. So is posting this photograph with that caption. It does appear to be consistent with their mission, though.

“We wanted to make a nice place to make bad decisions,” co-owner Tristan Magee told the Washington City Paper.