“Things are supposed to be fun, not injury-producing,” says attorney Lawrence Saftler, whose client, Manhattan screenwriter Aaron Schnore, didn’t succeed in staying on the raging mechanical bull at Johnny Utah’s restaurant in midtown. (Jose Martinez, “Raging bull rider suing restaurant”, New York Daily News, Sept. 5; Popehat).
William Saletan is appropriately appalled by the action of the Los Angeles City Council, which has moved to prohibit the opening of new fast food restaurants in South Central. Law and public health activists are trying to obtain similar legislation in New York and elsewhere, often pretending that they are not seeking to override the actual food choices of local residents. It’s a good idea not always to accept their factual assertions at face value:
“You try to get a salad within 20 minutes of our location; it’s virtually impossible,” says the Community Coalition’s executive director. Really? The coalition’s headquarters is at 8101 S. Vermont Ave. A quick Google search shows, among other outlets, a Jack-in-the-Box six blocks away. They have salads. Not the world’s greatest salads, but not as bad as a government that tells you whose salad you can eat.
(”Food Apartheid”, Slate, Jul. 31).
More: Several thoughts from Hans Bader, including this: “When Domino’s, a private company, decided not to deliver pizza and other fast food to certain dangerous parts of Washington, D.C., based on geographic region, not race, it was accused of racism by civil-rights groups, sued for discrimination, and demonized by D.C.’s City Council. … Why the double standard in favor of government bullies?” From commenter “Shine” at Matthew Yglesias: “What’s ironic is that many of the mom and pop restaurants were burned out during the 1992 riots. And the fast-food franchises promised two things that the post-riot LA political establishment (i.e., Rebuild L.A.) demanded above all else: minority ownership and jobs.” Another commenter there, “Too many Steves”, sniffs “a political favor to the existing franchise owners”, who stand to benefit from the throttle on competition, and whose interests of course diverge from those of the national franchisors, who are probably quite sincere in their opposition.
Governor Schwarzenegger has signed into law the first statewide ban on the use of the maligned ingredient by restaurants and food service facilities. (Samantha Sondag, “Gov. signs nation’s first statewide ban on trans fats in restaurants”, San Francisco Chronicle, Jul. 25).
P.S. Speaking of the nanny state in California, Los Angeles is moving to ban new fast food restaurants from poorer sections of South Central L.A. on the explicitly paternalistic grounds that it knows better than local residents what they should be eating. Prof. Bainbridge has more.
A year ago (Jun. 26, 2007) guestblogger Christian Schneider reported on the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s suppression of a “frozen beer pop” specialty offered by the Alexandria restaurant Rustico. Now the state legislature has enacted a bill sponsored by Del. Adam Ebbin and Sen. Patsy Ticer (both D-Alexandria) re-legalizing the cooling treats, which went back on sale July 1 in such flavors as framboise, cherry kriek, cassis, plum, and chocolate stout. (Erin Zimmer, SeriousEats.com, Jun. 25; Gillian Gaynair, “Rustico brings back beer pops for summer”, Washington Business Journal, Jun. 20)(& welcome The Agitator and Reason “Hit and Run”, Belgian ladmag ZV, Christian Schneider/WPRI readers).
Even if your purpose is just to memorialize the business for which your family is best known locally, you can still get into a lot of trouble in Missouri. (Dan Margolies, “Literal interpretation of obscure state law threatens Smithville restaurant”, Kansas City Star, Jun. 28)(via Eric Berlin).
Three years ago we noted (following reporting by Ed Lowe and J.E. Espino of the Appleton, Wis. Post-Crescent) (more) that
Representatives of the Hollywood, Fla.-based law firm of Schwartz Zweben & Associates have played a substantial role behind the scenes in helping organize, promote and support the Ms. Wheelchair America pageant and some of its state affiliates. And lawyers with the firm have filed more than 200 lawsuits in at least seven states and the District of Columbia on behalf of at least 13 pageant participants, “including state and national titleholders, state coordinators and pageant judges”.
Now the Birmingham, Ala. News follows up on the case of Colleen Macort, Ms. Wheelchair Florida 2002, who has filed more than 73 disabled-accessibility actions in Alabama “but has never spent a day in court because of settlements”. Local law provides that Macort cannot be compensated for filing the lawsuits, but the Wisconsin paper reported that the firm of Schwartz Zweben had engaged her as a consultant on other cases. The reporter is kind enough to quote me and mention this site (Liz Ellaby, “Bessemer woman crusades to address disability act violations, provoking critics”, Birmingham News, Jul. 3).
In the state of Washington, Ms. Wheelchair Washington 2005, Michelle Beardshear, has teamed up with the Florida firm to file 15 lawsuits, of which twelve have been settled, against enterprises in Clark County (Kathie Durbin, “Advocate for disabled not hesitant to sue for access”, The Columbian, May 27 courtesy Chamber ILR). And in March, Schwartz Zweben & Slingbaum (as it is now called) swooped down to sue twelve defendants in the Tucson area, including a number of well-known restaurants, alleging ADA violations. (Josh Brodesky, “12 Tucson businesses facing suits alleging Disabilities Act problems”, Arizona Daily Star, Mar. 28).
Overly eager salmonella-chasing attorneys might risk coming across as, well, bad actors (ATRA press release, Jun. 11). More: Jane Genova takes a different view.
“Yes, I was a ‘duckeasy’,” confesses one restaurateur. “The repeal passed Wednesday over the shouted objections of the ordinance’s original sponsor by a vote of 37 to six after a council member forced it out of committee.” (AFP/Drexel “Smart Set”, May 15). We were among the many who criticized the Chicago government for banning the delicacy.
A customer complained to the staff that a man was in the women’s restroom in the Greenwich Village restaurant Caliente Cab Co. Given the risk of multi-million dollar liability of failing to act in the face of a warning if a customer were assaulted by a man in the women’s restroom, a restaurant bouncer ejected Khadijah Farmer, Khadijah’s girlfriend, and a third in their dinner party.
Unfortunately for the restaurant, Khadijah Farmer was not a man, but an extraordinarily masculine-looking lesbian (who says she is mistaken for a man on a “daily basis”).
Further unfortunately for the restaurant, New York City has an unusual law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of “sexual stereotyping.” Further further unfortunately, Ms. Farmer wasn’t satisfied when the restaurant offered her a free meal in response to her complaint, and went straight for the lawyers. Further further further unfortunately, a top-tier law firm agreed to work the case “pro bono,” assigned three attorneys to it, and ran to the courthouse, even after the restaurant agreed to sensitivity training for its employees.
Let’s agree: the bouncer made a mistake and should have taken the opportunity to look at Farmer’s ID. Women shouldn’t be thrown out of women’s restrooms for looking like men, though one who looks as masculine as Farmer has to reasonably expect questioning unless we’re going to go the unisex bathroom route.
Damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t; up against a law firm using a bazooka to kill a mosquito; and in a neighborhood where being on good terms with the gay community is important for business relations, the restaurant, facing weekly pickets from the Queer Justice League, rolled over and settled for $35,000 + $15,000 in attorney’s fees, which will eventually be extracted from the restaurant’s clientele in the form of higher prices. (Jennifer 8. Lee, “Sexual Stereotypes, Civil Rights and a Suit About Both”, NY Times, Oct. 10; Jennifer 8. Lee, “Woman Wins a Settlement Over Her Bathroom Ouster“, NY Times, May 14; Andy Humm, “Calls to Boycott Caliente Cab Company”, Gay City News, Jul. 19).
I ate at the Caliente Cab Co. on Bleecker in the summer of 1988 when I lived on 12th and University; next time I’m inclined to eat there, I’ll let them throw me out of the restaurant for a fraction of what they paid Ms. Farmer. (Similarly: Gothamist commenters.)
The good news is that the legal problems of New York’s poor and non-profits have been so thoroughly resolved that a law firm can devote substantial pro bono resources to punitively harassing a small business over a bouncer’s not especially unreasonable misunderstanding, and has successfully trained a couple of young associates that they can file a lawsuit to extract tens of thousands of dollars over a $50 dispute. Do Morrison & Foerster’s clients know that this is the kind of litigation they’re subsidizing?
Previously on pro not-so-bono: October 2004.
“We were issued a writ because, God bless America, if the toilet paper is not thick enough and you come out with a rash on your ass [you’ll get sued].” — Scottish celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who is being sued over his upcoming reality-TV show “Kitchen Nightmares”. Martin Hyde sued Ramsay and the show’s producers after being fired during the filming of a “Nightmares” episode which depicted unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the Manhattan restaurant Hyde managed (which was closed by the city health board shortly after the taping); Hyde claims aspects of the show were staged, which Ramsay denies. (James Hibberd, “Ramsay Blasts ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ Lawsuit”, TV Week, Aug. 28).
Visitors to Rustico restaurant in Alexandria, VA may think they’re merely enjoying an innocent Beersicle (video)- but state regulators seem to think they are practicing their own vigilante brand of thirst amelioration. The new “frozen beer on a stick” offering apparently violates a state law that requires beer be sold in its original container or served immediately after it is poured.
It would seem to me that the beersicle actually serves as a deterrent to consuming large amounts of beer as fast as possible. This isn’t a good thing? Wouldn’t the cops be a little better served by making sure terrorists aren’t amassing a stockpile of bomb pops?
[Update Jul. 2008: state legislature legalizes the pops.]
“…then sues both.” According to her lawyer, Tom Maag, Amanda Verett was holding open the door for co-defendant Clarence Jackson when he “grabbed the door in such a fashion that it caused the door to suddenly and sharply move,” resulting in injuries for which Ms. Verett wants upwards of $150,000 from Jackson, the restaurant, or some combination of both. It happened in Edwardsville, Ill., in lawsuit-famed Madison County, where Thomas Maag is a member of a famous family of lawyers (Oct. 29, 2004). (Steve Gonzalez, Madison County Record, Mar. 8).
P.S. The website of the Dennis & Verett Law Office of Edwardsville indicates that Amanda Bradley Verett was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 2003 and is a member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, now renamed the American Association for Justice. (hat tip: reader David Nowlan)
Did you think the city famed for Al Capone and the Prohibition speakeasies would roll over for an even sillier nanny-statism?
When the letter came from City Hall threatening punishment if he continued to serve foie gras at his North Side restaurant, Doug Sohn framed the warning and set it beside his cash register.
And he kept serving the fattened duck liver without a care. …
The city has sent warning letters to nine restaurants believed to have served foie gras but issued no citations, Chicago Department of Public Health spokesman Tim Hadac said. Letters are sent after a citizen complaint and are followed by a visit after a second complaint. Visits that turn up evidence of the banished dish can result in fines from $250 to $500.
But Mayor Richard Daley is no fan of the ban–just this week, he called it “the silliest law” the City Council has ever passed.
Perhaps that helps explain why the Health Department is in no rush to boost their compliance checks.
“In a world of very limited public health resources we’re being asked to drop some things so we can enforce a law like this,” Hadac said. “With HIV/AIDS, cancer, West Nile virus and some of the other things we deal with, foie gras is our lowest priority.” …
Some owners have tiptoed around the ban by serving the dish under alternate or code names (”I’ll have the special lobster” will supposedly score foie gras at one restaurant), but renegades say they’ll do what they must to fight City Hall. …
At first, [restauranteur David Richards] said, restaurant owners worried their access to foie gras would be limited, and they crafted plots to keep their supply flowing–like getting it mailed to a suburban address for weekly covert pickups. Such cunning turned out not to be necessary, he said. Richards still gets foie gras from the same distributor he always did, and no one seems to care that it is still on his menu.
“We look at it as a choice,” he said. “We live in a free-market society and if people are truly offended they won’t buy it. If they don’t buy it, I won’t buy it.”
Instead, he said, his foie gras sales have climbed, making him even less inclined to heed the law. …
Many of those most vocally opposed to the ban have coolly stepped away from the debate by ending their foie gras sales or at least coming up with names clever enough to obscure the issue. Available on the menu at Copperblue, for instance, is “`It Isn’t Foie Gras any Moore’ Duck Liver Terrine”–a testy nod to the alderman who sponsored the foie gras ban.
Though the $16 cost seems closer to the price of foie gras than simple duck liver, Copperblue chef and owner Michael Tsonton would not say whether he had merely renamed the illicit dish. In September, when still serving foie gras, he got a warning letter that he said he hung in his kitchen.
(Josh Noel, “Let ‘em eat foie gras, they declare”, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 22 (via Noonan, who says he was thinking of opening a restaurant called “Foie Gras Fried In Trans Fat”)). The Tribune story lists the nine restaurants that have gotten warning letters, and I can personally vouch for one of my favorites, Bin 36, where a date and I had a fine meal during a January 2005 blizzard.
Correspondent R.C. directs our attention to the curious claim of “harm” by the last-named plaintiff:
Animal rights activists have asked a state judge to stop foie gras production in New York, saying the ducks used are overfed to such an extent that they are diseased and unfit for sale under state law.
The lawsuit, if it succeeds, could spell the end of foie gras production in America, a goal animal rights groups have long sought. The two Sullivan county farms that are defendants in the suit are the only foie gras producers in the country, other than a Northern Californian foie gras farm that may shut down under a California state law banning the industry….
The first challenge the suit faces is to convince a judge that the animal-rights activists who filed the suit have suffered enough harm to allow them standing to sue. The plaintiffs in yesterday’s suit offered several ways that they had been harmed by the foie gras industry.
One plaintiff, Caroline Lee, claims that the state’s regulatory departments are misspending her tax dollars by inspecting birds raised for foie gras production without concluding they are diseased. Another plaintiff, an animal rescue organization, Farm Sanctuary, claims its employees have been “aesthetically and emotionally injured” by being exposed to the “suffering” of abandoned ducks that they rescue from foie gras production. Another plaintiff, a New York restaurateur, Joy Pierson, claims that her decision not to serve foie gras has caused her to lose customers at her two Manhattan restaurants, Candle 79 and Candle Café, according to the complaint.
(Joseph Goldstein, “In New Lawsuit, Activists Seek Ban On Production of Foie Gras in N.Y.”, New York Sun, Nov. 16). More: Nov. 10, Nov. 2, Aug. 18, Jun. 8, Apr. 27, etc.
Burger King Corp. has asked a federal court in Miami “to declare that the use of a mock heavy metal band featuring performers wearing chicken masks does not violate any rights” of the heavy metal band Slipknot, whose lawyers had fired off a cease and desist letter to the burger operator and its ad agency over the ad in question. “The Coq Roq band is a mock heavy metal band that is markedly and obviously different from Slipknot except for the generic fact that both play heavy metal music and wear masks,” according to the fast-food chain’s filing. (”Burger King takes ad dispute to court”, Orlando Sentinel, Aug. 21; Charlie Amter, “Slipknot Seeks to Block BK’s Coq”, E!Online, Aug. 18)(with ghastly photos))
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