Thread: Speak english not a crime yet

Sunday, December 18, 2005
'Speak English' opinion isn't a crime, yet

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... /1009/edit

The Enquirer/Tony Jones

Pleasure Inn owner Tom Ullum added a poke at the ACLU to go with his controversial speak-English sign.


There is no evidence that Jim Crow has ever warmed a bar stool or nursed a long neck at the Pleasure Inn tavern in Mason. But to hear the Ohio Civil Rights Commission tell it, Jim Crow is a two-fisted regular who stands in the door with an ax handle to run off anyone who can't speak English.

The commissioners did everything but accuse owner Tom Ullum of being a certified racist because he put a sign in his bar window that said, "For Service Speak English."

On second thought, they did that too. "It's just as effective as a 'whites only' sign," they said, invoking Rosa Parks as if she had been ordered to sit in the back of the bar.

"Go back with me to 1964," said the chairman, Pastor Aaron Wheeler Sr., playing to a crowd of visiting black high school kids. "All I want to do is educate you," he told Ullum, as he compared the sign to a "whites only" hospital he had once seen in Tennessee.

Ullum might have objected that Jack Daniels is no doctor and tequila is not exactly the same as penicillin, but Wheeler cut him off. "First of all, whenever you speak, say 'Mr. Chairman,'" he scolded. "I run this meeting."

I had no idea the state of Ohio could provide such stand-up comedy at a cost of only $10.7 million a year for the Civil Rights Commission.

"Don't you see where some people may be offended?" Wheeler asked in disbelief.

"I don't really care," Ullum replied in a matter-of-fact twang. "I offend a lot of people with my signs. I have one that says 'Michigan sucks.' How do you think Michigan people feel about that?" (Some of us agree, but back to the show.)

Wheeler said the sign was discrimination because "all people have a right to everything in this nation."

Never mind that the chief special investigator got the facts backward by saying the complaint by Housing Opportunities Made Equal was triggered by controversy. There was no controversy before the complaint.

Never mind that there was no evidence of discrimination. "We believe discrimination occurs every time someone passes the bar and sees the sign," said HOME Director Elizabeth Brown.

Never mind that staff lawyer Mathew Miko admitted, "Despite exhaustive research, we could not find a (similar court) case" to back up such a complaint.

That's because the law is clear that the sign is not discrimination, said Ullum's lawyer, K.C. McAlpin of ProEnglish in Arlington, Va.

"This is really pretty preposterous," he said. "Some people don't like Mr. Ullum's opinion, so they're using this process and the Civil Rights Commission to go after someone."

A good time was had by all.

The civil rights crowd seemed jazzed by all the attention. "There are not too many opportunities in this day and age to see signs that project such an image of discrimination," Miko said.

The commission found "probable cause" of discrimination - but commissioner Charlie Winburn of Cincinnati made that motion only to get the case before an administrative law judge, where overheated emotions would be trumped by cold law. "Let the record show there is no evidence of discrimination," he said.

Ullum's lawyer, McAlpin, said that was next best to dismissal.

"The law on this is overwhelming," he said. "We are quite confident that we will be upheld if we have to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court."

The commission should read the First Amendment, he said.

And for now, the sign stays. Ullum's right to express his opinion in his own bar is still not a crime in Ohio. Yet.

E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call (513) 768-8301.

I don't like the sound of this. If people start making laws that say we have to serve people who can't communicate well enough to ask for what they want, where does that leave us? Do you think you can go to some foreign country and walk in an average mom and pop owned corner restaurant or store and expect the employees to speak English? Then why should they expect any different here, where English is our language and has been for three hundred years?

Actually, I believe you'll find that most states Alcohol Control Boards require as a part of an establishments license to be able to communicate with their patrons. I believe it has something to do with the servers ability to judge whether or not a patron has been served to many drinks. Just my two cents worth...I am familiar with South Carolina and Virginia laws, and I suspect they are similar in other states...

My second comment on this is that if the state requires someone to served under the articles condition, that the state provide an interpreter free of charge to the Server's establishment. Oh, wait, that would cause more free service on the back of the taxpayer...no, that won't work...

I know...maybe the server could get a volunteer (paying him/her in shot glasses)...wait a minute...that's what they want...Free booze!

Sorry to put my neck in here...isn't this whole situation just ridiculous?

By the way, I wasn't saying that the owner should learn Spanish either...

manlyva, I understand. One more vicious circle is what this is.