This just erupted here in Milwaukee yesterday.
http://www.wisn.com/news/leons-frozen-custard-english-rule/39611466
http://www.wisn.com/news/leons-frozen-custard-english-rule/39611466
The owner of Leon's Frozen Custard, a favorite treat location on Milwaukee's south side, acknowledged Wednesday that he has a rule in place that prevents his employees from speaking to customers in Spanish, but he said it doesn't come from a place of discrimination or racism.
Instead, Ron Schneider said his policy is more a matter of business and speeding up sales.
"I'm trying not to encourage it because this is going to be a problem down the road," he said. "We can't be the United Nations. They got translators. We don't."
Schneider recalled a time years ago when the neighborhoods around the shop at South 27th Street and West Oklahoma Avenue saw a great influx of Hispanic people. Customers, he said, would come to the window and reach a communication roadblock with his English-speaking employees.
"I would prefer if the employees would simply speak English, and encourage those customers who can to speak English, and if you don't speak English, trust me -- we can come up with some way to communicate with you," he said.
But customer Joey Sanchez said his Tuesday visit to Leon's wasn't as accommodating as Schneider lets on.
Sanchez said he was in line behind a Spanish-speaking woman who was told by an employee to place her order in English. When it was his turn to order, Sanchez, who speaks both English and Spanish, went to the window and proceeded to order in Spanish.
"She confirmed it to me in my face. She say, 'I'm not allowed to speak Spanish to you,'" Sanchez said, adding that the experience left him frustrated because Leon's makes "a good profit out of the Spanish community."
He said he believes it could only help Schneider if he relaxed his policy.
"I believe if I can ask for a product in my language and have somebody there that can speak it and understand me better, it's going to be better for him," Sanchez said. "It's going to attract more Latino customers and at the end he's going to show a better heart about how he feels about the Hispanic community."
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission permits employers to adopt English-only rules, but only for nondiscriminatory reasons.
This just erupted here in Milwaukee yesterday.
http://www.wisn.com/news/leons-frozen-custard-english-rule/39611466
Makes me wonder about his hiring practices. English only there too? Or is he subject to paranoid thinking that people are talking trash about him in Spanish?
I don't see what the actual utility of his policy is other than to needlessly antagonize his customer base...which is always a sound business decision.
You're right, the senate really needs to reform who is qualified for office. Anyone running for office needs to be able to speak, and understand Mexican. Extra points will be given if they are fairly fluent in Spanish.Got an influx of Spanish customers?
Hire a Spanish dude.
It ain't that hard.
Once again the left plays the Victim card.
Sounds like this policy has been in place for decades, and only now is a problem when someone went out of their way to be offended.
Spanish is not a skill one either has or not. He may well be tired of holding up the line while his employees' broken and marginal Spanish skills tries to comprehend the customers' fluent Spanish. Or while his employees' high school textbook Spanish skills try to cope with idiopathic Mexican/Guademalan/etc. Spanish. If he discourages customers with communication difficulties, he may net more customers as the length of the wait is a powerful disincentive to trade with a particular merchant. Or he may just dislike his employees carrying on his business in a language he does not understand. Either way, there are thousands of extant languages so obviously there can be no requirement to accommodate a customer's native or preferred language.Dumb policy. His reasoning makes no sense either, when Latinos started moving in, he had problems. Then some of his Workers were Latino and the problem goes away, but now he wants to return to the problem because of some longterm problem he foresees? That's just stupid.
I suspect he just jumped on the Rage Train and this is his way of fighting back.
Hmmm with the heavy Germanic make up of Wisco, I wonder if people speaking German would be getting the same response.
lol Excellent point. In a way, this speaks to the gay wedding thingy.Point, grunt, get ice cream. It isn't that hard. I speak almost no spanish yet manage to get most excellent food using the point-grunt method at the myriad of Mexican roach coaches and holes-in-wall where no one speaks english.
Is not knowing English a protected class?
So why should we accept that Spanish, unlike all the other languages spoken by immigrants to America, should be protected and encouraged to endure?You think people speak German in public is normal in WI? This isnt 1916.
I'd imagine if somebody tried to order in German they would get a blank look on the employees face. So yeah, I think they would probably get the same treatment.
Anyways I dont think it is a good business decision to not accommodate customers. If you have employees that can speak Spanish to the customers, let them.
So why should we accept that Spanish, unlike all the other languages spoken by immigrants to America, should be protected and encouraged to endure?
Being bilingual is a blessing in an individual and a curse in a nation. It establishes that some citizens are fundamentally unlike the others.