Posted on 08/19/2005 7:10:11 AM PDT by veronica
(CBS) NEW YORK A New Jersey restaurant is offering a discount to win back customers after a staff member left an offensive message on a customer's check. This comes as the restaurant braces for a civil rights investigation by the state's attorney general.
"You see 'Jew Couple' as a bar order. I was a little bit shocked," said offended customer Elliot Stein.
Elliot Stein and his girlfriend were the victim of a bartender at a Jersey Shore restaurant when he used the words "Jew Couple" to identify them on their check.
Stein considers the check racial profiling.
The Attorney General's Office Division on Civil Rights has now launched an investigation into Parkhill's Waterfront Grill in Loch Arbour.
"We want to determine what the facts are and see if the conduct violated the law against discrimination," said Peter Harvey the NJ Attorney General.
The restaurants general manager Malia Wells had this to say about the issue.
"Unfortunately it was poor judgment by our bartender. She apologized. I apologize. It was poor judgment and she is no longer with us."
Despite apologies and firings, the Attorney General wants to look into this case further.
"It certainly isn't in anybody's handwriting which wouldn't suggest the waitress wrote it. It suggests as you pointed out in the software of the restaurant's computer system. It may not be a waitress problem. This may be a management problem, an institutional problem. If so, we intend to correct the institution and not have the institution blame its employees who were trained a certain way." said Harvey.
A restaurant spokesperson told us today that they don't have software in their system that identifies customers by race or religion, and after this incident, table numbers will be used to label customers.
The attorney general says the restaurant could be subject to a fine or forced to re-train its employees if his office determines a civil rights violation.
The Attorney General says his office has not received any other complaints on the restaurant.
Oh yeah, I'm SURE they would.Why I interrupt my meal and violate my "mind-your-own-business" rule at least three times a day to remiind people to "not be so loud", etc. I'm sure a restaurant on the Jersey Shore, which lives and dies by the summer tourist trade, routinely throws out close-to-inebriated patrons who may be loud and obnoxious but who haven't pulled out a gun yet.
We're only getting one side of the story here: the aggrieved couple's side. The waitress has not been talked to and the restaurant, of course, does nothing but apologize (naturally).
I'd like to know what motivated her. Is she mental? Is she stupid? Did someone say something to her? Was she stiffed on a tip the previous evening by these people? Inquiring minds want to know, but we're not being told.
That one is easy. YES. :)
Asked completely rhetorically. But thanks for clearing that up -- I never would have guessed on my own.
After all it was a favorite tactic of Jesse Jackson.
Apparently the term "Jew" is now a racial slur, beam me up.
If she'd identified the customer as "the dude wearing the yamika" would that be equally offensive?
And, it proves an old adage my mother passed on to me. Never put anything in writing that you wouldn't want read in a court of law...:)
I'm just SICK of everyone being offended by the littlest things, for pete's sake she doesn't even work there anymore and now the state wants to turn this into some knid of "hate crime".
It's simply RIDICULOUS IMHO.
Excellent, the "Jew Couple" got everyone a discount!
Related threads.
N.J. Restaurant Writes 'Jew Couple' On Check As Table Identifier
N.J. Eatery Writes 'Jew Couple' on Check
You're joking, right?
I like these threads.
On the one hand you have posters suggesting that if you have a rude, obnoxious couple, and there's nothing unusual about describing them as "Jew Couple", rather than "Rude Couple" or "Obnoxious Couple", the meaning presumably clear.
Scroll down a couple posts, assertions that "Jew Couple" clearly isn't used with malice.
Multi-hundred post threads, people don't see the connection.
Seems to me that FR has proved that many people use Jew as a derogatory adjective.
are you sure it was vicious? was the waitress perhaps engaged in a conversation about the jewish religion with them? was the man perhaps wearing a yarmelka and (like me) the waitress didn't know how to spell it but knew that it was associated with being jewish?
Dear SJackson,
"See post 29 and 31. We now have several multi hundred post threads with a number of posters indicating that the comment may have been put on the bill because the couple was rude, obnoxious, or poor tippers, thus the notation 'Jew Couple', as a derogatory notation."
???
Gee, I think that might be even uglier. I don't know. Gotta think about that one.
In any case, I read with interest the thread on "Dirty Joanne." These folks really know how to attract repeat business. LOL.
Hope their business is wiped out and they're homeless by morning.
sitetest
what good timing.. i just got an email from someone, reminded me of possibly how this could've been used as a serious insult.
"jew" as a slang verb. to "jew" someone is to take advantage of them monetarily. if they were regulars (which one article said they were) the waitress heard stories, or knew from experience, that they were lousy tippers, then it might have been a racial slur.
Dear absolootezer0,
I really have no idea how this inappropriate notation wound up on this couple's check, or on "Dirty Joanne's" check, either. I don't think I care.
But that the restaurant didn't immediately fire Joanne's server a year ago when she brought it up to management speaks extremely poorly of this chicken-sh!t eating establishment, where e. coli and salmonella probably runs rampant.
I don't think that the attorney general should be involved here, and I don't think that if I were on a jury deciding a civil suit against them that I'd award much more than the cost of dinner at the greasy spoon, but I DO think that lots of really bad publicity, driving the joint out of business, is a perfectly wonderful response.
sitetest
Might be, I don't know either.
I don't think that the attorney general should be involved here, and I don't think that if I were on a jury deciding a civil suit against them that I'd award much more than the cost of dinner at the greasy spoon, but I DO think that lots of really bad publicity, driving the joint out of business, is a perfectly wonderful response.
Agreed the AG has no role here.From the coverage I've read, there is no lawsuit, as yet, Freeper allegations that there is aside. What's missing from the restaurant's "explanations" is the comped bar tab, or at free dinner the next time they're in.
So far it's a case of very stupid management, and the publicity is deserved.
Dear SJackson,
"What's missing from the restaurant's 'explanations' is the comped bar tab, or at free dinner the next time they're in."
Good point. I've received free dinners at restaurants for lighter offenses.
I wonder if the couple initially approached the restaurant and got similar treatment to "Dirty Joanne," in other words, they got blown off? And that's maybe when they took it to the papers?
Oh well, apparently business is circling the toilet bowl. Appears to be a well-deserved fate.
sitetest
I'm going to assume it was vicious, or at least in very poor taste, otherwise why write "Jew couple" at all? Why not some other term to identify them? Apparently the remark was made not so much to help the waitress identify which bill belonged to whom, but rather to send a subtle message to the person who was going to get it.
I don't usually go around making personal notes on people like "black idiot" or "irish drunk" as a mnemonic device, do you?
No I'm not. Do you routinely use racial epithets in public, as part of your normal vocabulary? Do you go around burning crosses on your neighbor's lawn for kicks on the weekend?
I'd bet you don't. I certainly don't.
But, if someone did something to provoke you, I'd bet a racial slur or somesuch could quite possibly enter your mind or pass your lips. That's all I'm saying.
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