Herman: Is Hooters family-friendly?
Ken Herman says feud will be left up to government to decide.
AUSTIN — Government, bless its bloated heart, does so much for us. It defends us from enemies, foreign and domestic. It builds schools and roads. It redistributes wealth in ways that sometime make sense.
And it seeks to answer the vexatious questions that vex us as we drift off to sleep each night. Like this one: In the year of our Lord 2016, in the greatest state in the greatest country on the greatest planet, is Hooters a family restaurant?
The obvious answer, of course, is it depends on the family. Maybe for yours, but not for, say, the Grahams of North Carolina.
This tale began April 1 when challenges were filed to Hooters’ application for Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission permits for a location proposed for downtown Fort Worth. The application didn’t sit well with some downtown Fort Worth folks.
“The Protestants intervened and argued that the TABC should not issue (Hooters) the required permits, based upon the general welfare, health, peace, morals and safety of the people and on the public sense of decency,” says a recent report from the State Office of Administrative Hearings.
FYI, the aforementioned Protestants actually are the protestants — as in folks protesting the issuance of alcoholic beverage licenses for this Hooters. Their religions are not part of the record, though there is a church involved. The protestants include the chief operating officer of the Christ Chapel Bible Church, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, and some downtown Fort Worth residents and business interests.
The whole thing recently wound up in the lap of state Administrative Law Judge Robert F. Jones Jr. of Fort Worth, whose job it was to hear the case and gin up a proposed decision for TABC to mull, perhaps over an adult beverage or two. Jones convened a hearing Aug. 30 and, to his credit, did not convene it at a Hooters. That would have been wrong. Perhaps more entertaining than a usual administrative hearing, but wrong.
The lower-case-p protestants protested on several grounds, primarily relating to the proposed Hooters proximity to high-rise residences, a library and a church. As noted above, key factors to be gauged include a Hooters’ impact on “the general welfare, health, peace, morals and safety of the people and on the public sense of decency.”
Public sense of decency is such a subjective thing, one thing among the church-going public on a Sunday morning and another among the rally-going public at the Republic of Texas motorcycle rally.
In his Nov. 9 proposal for decision, Jones summed up the August hearing. He noted that Price, as Fort Worth mayor, testified she’d heard from constituents “concerned that Hooters might diminish the family friendly reputation of our downtown.” This despite, as the record shows, the nearby presence of several clubs that employ women whose attire would be insufficient for outdoor winter work.
“Downtown Fort Worth is now home to 6,228 people,” Price testified, “and those residents are incredibly proud to live in a vibrant, safe, thriving, familyfriendly environment.”
And, to date, a Hooters-free environment.
The law governing the decision says TABC can deny permits “based upon the general welfare,” etc., as well as “some unusual condition or situation.”
Henry Borbolla III thinks his situation may become unusual. He testified he can see the proposed Hooters location from the terrace of his eighth-floor apartment. He and his wife don’t want to see Hooters when they dine on their terrace.
Linda LeRow lives on the sixth floor of a nearby building and testified she enjoys visits from her grandchildren and “has concerns about answering children’s questions about the meaning of Hooters.”
Rick Neeves, representing Christ Chapel Bible Church, testified women attending sessions run by the church at a downtown location would be “accosted or propositioned from the Hooters patio by drunken men.”
As a group, the protestants are not protesting the concept of a downtown Fort Worth Hooters, just the specific proposed location. At the hearing, they showed a video entitled “Hooters — A Family Friendly Restaurant” that included a scene in which “a young woman in an abbreviated top and a ballet tutu is twirling a hula hoop.”
“There follow scenes of enthusiastic, if not wild, dancing by patrons and Hooters girls” at several of the restaurants, Jones wrote.
“To show that Hooters relies upon sex appeal to sell beer,” he wrote, “protestants had Ms. Levitas acknowledge during cross-examination that the double ‘O’ in the word ‘HOOTERS,’ as well as the oversized eyes in (the) owl logo, simulate female breasts and admit the term ‘Hooters’ is a double entendre.”
That’s not sounding real familyfriendly to me. But the whole thing takes on a different hue when we hear from the aforementioned Ms. Levitas, who is Claudia Levitas, chief legal officer of Hooters of America.
Hooters sees itself as “restaurant-sports bars,” she testified, adding that market research shows that 35 percent of its customers are women and children.
Hooters girls, Levitas testified, are “beautiful, productive members of society.” And she quoted from the Hooters handbook: “The Hooters Girl is the essence of the Hooters concept and her look and image is that of the glamorous All American cheerleader; beautiful and sexy yet wholesome, vivacious and friendly.”
Bottom line, Jones wrote, is that he “cannot find, from a preponderance of the evidence, that the Hooters Girl uniform violates the public sense of decency.”
And, he wrote, he could not find, “from a preponderance of the evidence, that Hooters is not family friendly so as to justify a denial of (the) requested permits.”
That’s semi-final. His proposal for a decision will be submitted to TABC after each side has an opportunity to raise exceptions to his report. The agency will make the final call. Because this involves state government, it could take a while.