OQLF beef gains steam
‘PASTAGATE’ flap simmers as Joe Beef’s David McMillan and other local restaurateurs speak out about run-ins with Office québécois de la langue française inspectors.
It seems “pastagate” isn’t finito.
The controversy surrounding the Office québécois de la langue française’s objection to the word “pasta” on a Montreal restaurant’s menu continued to simmer over the weekend, with the owner of one of the city’s most famous eateries speaking out about his own run-ins with the provincial language watchdog.
David McMillan, co-owner of Joe Beef on Notre Dame St., said the OQLF recently paid a visit to his establishment and asked him to remove an antique sign above the staff bathroom that read “please leave this gate closed.”
The inspector also apparently had a problem with an “exit” sign salvaged from a beach in Prince Edward Island.
McMillan did take down the sign near the bathroom, he said, but last Wednesday’s flap involving the OQLF and Buonanotte restaurant — which used the word “pasta” instead of “pâtes” on its menu — convinced him it was time to take a stand.
“When we first started getting letters from them and the visits from the inspectors, we were just scared of doing anything,” McMillan said. “I had enough followers on Twitter to make a stink out of it, but we just felt alone.”
The Joe Beef chef, whose restaurant is consistently packed, said he loves living and working in Quebec, “but I just get so sad and depressed and wonder, what’s wrong with these people?”
McMillan wasn’t the only one feeling more talkative in the wake of what became widely known on social media this week as “pastagate.”
On Saturday, La Presse columnist Yves Boisvert penned a scathing account of a recent visit by a singularly enthusiastic OQLF inspector to Holder restaurant in Old Montreal. The owner of the high-end brasserie, Maurice Holder, told Boisvert he was asked to cover up the “redial” and “hold” buttons on the restaurant’s phone with opaque tape, and to do the same for the “ON/ OFF” button on the microwave.
The last straw? Being ordered to take down the “W.C.” sign on the washroom door. The initials, which stand for “water closet,” are commonly used to mark bathroom doors in France, Holder pointed out to the inspector.
“We’re not in France,” she reportedly replied.
The incident at Buonanotte has even attracted the attention of business owners not connected to the food service industry.
Jaime Rosenbluth, who owns a bike shop in the Plateau, also went public Saturday — telling CJAD radio that, after being ordered to get rid of a handful of English signs on his walls, he opted instead to cover them with papers that read (in French): “Warning. Non-French poster or sign underneath. Read at your own discretion.”
The number of complaints registered by the OQLF has, based on its own statistics, been steadily rising over the past four years. Between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2010, 2,780 complaints were registered. For the same period 2010-2011, it was 3,661. And between April 1, 2011, and March 31, 2012, the number increased to 4,067.
All three years, the majority of complaints involved signage, product labels and business documents (including websites, invoices, etc.), and more than 60 per cent of alleged infractions occurred in Montreal.
The numbers for 2012-13 should be available within the next few months.
Under the Parti Québécois government, the OQLF has received a six-per-cent budget increase this year, to $24.7 million, in an effort to protect the French language.
The OQLF could not be reached for comment over the weekend. Wednesday, however, it seemed to recognize it had gone one menu item too far, issuing a release that acknowledged the inspector dispatched to Buonanotte had displayed “an excess of zeal.”
The owners of the Italian eatery may end up thanking their lucky stars for that overzealous public servant. After enjoying several days of intensive media coverage, Buonanotte’s owners promptly ordered a boxful of T-shirts with their logo printed on the front alongside a simple message: “J’aime pasta.”