GUILDERLAND — PETA had its ads pulled from three malls owned by Pyramid Management Group this week, including Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, it says.

The large, hanging ad pictured a calf being nuzzled by a cow with the tagline: I am not a jacket, a pair of boots or a steak.

The Crossgates ads went up on Dec. 8 and were also scheduled to run for four weeks at two other Pyramid-owned malls in New York: Sangertown Square in New Hartford and Walden Galleria in Cheektowaga, according to People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights group.

An email sent from a Pyramid advertising sales representative to PETA on Dec. 17, and shared with The Enterprise, said that Pyramid had originally approved a PETA ad with the tagline “Stop animal testing.”

“We just need a new ad that is more discrete in it’s messaging so it’s not de-influencing our shoppers from spending money with our tenants,” the Pyramid salesman wrote.

The general manager of Crossgates Mall did not return Enterprise calls seeking comment.

“It’s clearly an effective campaign,” Ashley Byrne, PETA’s director of outreach communication, told The Enterprise on Monday. “Our ads were removed because they worked so well. They made shoppers stop and think about how every sheep or cow is someone who does not want to be exploited for their flesh and skins.”

Asked if PETA would fight the Pyramid directive, Byrne said, “I honestly can’t say what we’re doing next because it’s only been a few dys.”

Crossgates Mall was a flashpoint for First Amendment rights more than two decades ago. Just before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, a local lawyer sparked a controversy  —  covered internationally   —  when he was arrested in Guilderland’s Crossgates Mall over a T-shirt with a message of peace. 

Stephen Downs and his son, Roger, had purchased T-shirts at Crossgates and had them printed with messages of peace. Downs’s shirt read “Peace on Earth” and “Give Peace a Chance,” and his son’s read “No War with Iraq” and “Let Inspections Work.” 

The previous December, The Enterprise had written about a group of individuals who entered the mall wearing peace T-shirts. They were escorted out by security, touching off First Amendment debates.

Downs joined the New York Civil Liberties Union and, after months of studying the law and how it relates to free speech in malls and shopping centers, decided to file a suit.

PETA’s outreach director believes having the ads pulled has helped her organization’s cause.

“The mall’s attempt to silence PETA’s message of compassion has actually amplified it,” Byrne said. “Being taken down for being too effective only draws more attention to the fact that people don’t want to support cruelty to animals because the message in the ad is entirely true.”

She added, “This was just a simple sweet photo that didn’t depict any of the actual horrors that go on behind the scenes in these industries.”