| "There is a heated dispute going on right now over a sign at Geno's Italian restaurant in Philadelphia" I've been following this myself as a business owner, and it's just plain stupid what Geno's is doing here. He's losing a ridiculous amount of business to competitors, not just Hispanics but also many whites and blacks who really don't care for such controversy and just want to go somewhere to eat. There may be some Ku Klux Klan blowhards who show up for a while to support the restaurant, but over the long term, Geno's has permanently lost an enormous amount of business. When I hire people for my retail shops, job applicants who can speak Spanish have a big advantage in getting the jobs. In fact, for the 17 recent job positions for which I was hiring, 14 of the new hires were able to speak Spanish-- including the most high-paying positions like managers and buyers-- while the other 3 are in the process of learning Spanish themselves. I'm doing this for basic business survival, not as any political statement-- so much of our customer base is Spanish-speaking that, if we don't have Spanish-speaking employees and Spanish labels in our stores, then those customers will go somewhere else that does have them, and we'll go out of business. In fact, about 40% of the retail shops in my area have recently gone out of business, and the vast majority of them were English-only in their employees and signs. They didn't survive. In contrast, the businesses that provided Spanish services are now thriving. Note also, that I'm in the Midwestern US mostly in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, yet Spanish is crucial here. For companies in the Southwestern states, New York, Florida, New England and New Jersey, you absolutely have to have Spanish or you won't survive. Even lawyers at law firms and doctors at hospitals are needing fluent Spanish to get hired. |
"The Right to Refuse Service to Anyone"