Yang Guofu Group, one of the world's largest spicy hot springs chains, apologizes and temporarily closes after using celebrity's name without permission at store in Sendai

Yang Guofu Group (Shanghai, China), which operates one of the world's largest malatan (mala tan) chains, opened a franchise store in Aoba Ward, Sendai City called ``Yang Guofu Malatang Sendai Ekimae Store.'' During its pre-opening on the 17th, the group apologized for using the name of a celebrity on the opening flowers without permission. The store subsequently announced that it would be temporarily closed.

The flowers celebrating the opening included the names of former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and professional figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu. Mr. Hanyu is from Sendai. A statement from Yang Guofu Group posted on the store's X (formerly Twitter) page apologized, saying, ``It has come to light that we had placed congratulatory flowers with the name of a third party written on them in front of the store without the customer's permission.We deeply apologize for hurting the reputation of those involved and causing any inconvenience.''

Store X said, ``Our store takes this incident seriously and deeply regrets it, and under the guidance of our headquarters, we will make sincere efforts to prevent recurrence and make improvements to ensure that such a situation never occurs again.''