Bob Filner’s Too Bad for Hooters
Bob Filner Image by getty images
Hooters is drawing a line in the sand — and his name is San Diego Mayor Bob Filner.
The jiggle joint restaurant chain, not normally known for its political correctness, has announced it will no longer serve the embattled Jewish pol, according to signs posted outside locations across the city.
Filner, recently slammed with a large number of sexual abuse allegations is now facing a major campaign to recall him from office.
The unlikely coalition arrayed against Filner now includes prominent female Jewish leaders such as Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz — and Hooters.
“We believe it is imperative for people to have standards,” reads Hooters’ sign, posted next to an ad featuring a blond woman, in the restaurants’ typical revealing waitress uniform, inviting men to drink Coors Light. “We believe women should be treated with respect.”
“Our Hooters girls in San Diego have spoken. Not a corporate gig, but we support our girls,” the company said in a message posted via Twitter, Reuters reported.
This may seem like a case of the fleshpot calling the kettle black: Hooters itself is not unfamiliar with sexual abuse lawsuits, as when, in 2004, dozens of women sued after being secretly filmed during interviews which involved changing into the chain’s skimpy waitress outfit.
Allegations against Filner, including a claim that he demanded a date in return for helping a Marine recovering from PTSD, have become so extreme that Hooters’ decision seems less than ironic.
In fact, Filner may find that Hooters’ doors aren’t the only ones closed to him from now on. The locks to the mayor’s office have been reportedly changed to give Filner a very unwelcome return from therapy.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
