Dallas-based chain Pizza Patron has found out how scary the current anti-immigrant sentiment can get. Its decision to accept pesos at its 59 stores in Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California has drawn death threats and hate mail. “If people would understand that the majority of our customers are Hispanic, then it might make more sense for a company to sell pizza for pesos,” said spokesman Andy Gamm. The chain just wants to sell more pizza. Whatever happened to letting businesses do business? How does this hurt noncustomers? At least change is given in U.S. currency.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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40 Comments
Rhonda doesn’t tell you that the exchange rate on the peso favors the pizza chain. Yes, they are making money off of the peso. It’s nothing but a click for the Hispanics. Let them do it. Don’t patronize the chain. A further way to distance the Hispanics from all other people. If that’s the way they want it, so be it. It’s still a free country, for now.
I don’t quite get the uproar. For some reason, this upsets some people. That pizza place could accept chickens or colored beads for payment, who cares?This is like many things. If you don’t like it, don’t go.
The same people get mad when they travel to foreign countries, and no one speaks English.
They would go ballistic in Mexico if a vendor wouldn’t take his dollar.
They’re pissed off when they see Japanese tourists at the Grand Canyon speaking Japanese.
Thirty percent of the people in this country are stark raving crazy. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
I can’t believe anyone seriously cares about this. It’s a non-issue. When did we become such a rabid society that something like this makes us so angry?
I agree with fleetwood? Must be the cold air.
One more thing. Holman calls this “anti-immigrant” sentiment.It is not and never has been anti-immigrant. It is and always should be “anti-illegal immigrant”.Just like the Libs, change the wording to suit.
Frustration leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate will lead to massive violence. As our Weimar economy continues its’ collapse and Whit folks lose their creature comforts they will be less likley to tolerate the continued presence of diseased, criminal, arrogant third world interlopers.
If I were a wetback, I would pack my bags and leave now, while the gettin’ was good.
Viva La raza Blanco!!
Yes, tattletale; not one single reporter has bothered to find out what the rate of exchange is. Thanx. Drives me crazy.
Another point: Most banks exchange foreign currency. Why not be mad at them, too?
Gasp, I agree with fleets enema. It is the anti-illegal immigrant part that gets people angry.
Pre-Euro Dollar, having several currencies in one’s wallet was a common thing. Most stores gave an exchange rate that included a convenience fee (for going to their bank) in order to sell their goods. They even took dollars.
If a Dallas-based pizza chain wants to accept pesos for pizza, it is their right to do so.
In saying that, it is also the right of any American to refuse to patronize this pizza chain for their decision to accept pesos. It is called capitalism. Why all the analysis?
I do find it interesting, though, that this is a Dallas-based pizza chain in the middle of this controversy. I wonder what else is going on? What other factors have come to play in this situation? Has the pizza chain been hiring illegals and this is the way the Americans are fighting back – with their dollars?
Seems to me it makes good sense. Just as a business near the canadian border might want to take Canadian currency. Why not? And to ’skew’ the exchange rate slightly to cover costs makes sense too.
Pizza for pesos? Arent’n we getting a bit internationally confused here? Pizza for Lire might be more appropriate.A hundred years or so ago, many companies in that area paid their Chinese workers in company scrip that could only be spent at company stores and for rent in company housing. Kept their workers on a tight leash!I wonder how many of the same people who get upset about a business that accepts Pesos keep a few South African Krueger-Rands or Canadian Maple Leafs in their bank boxes as a hedge fund.As much as some people object, the truth of the matter is that we do live in an international community. Patriotism is a good thing, but what this is descending into is chauvinism and racism. It may have originally been directed only at illegal immigrants, but it has long since spilled over into hatred for anyone or anything Hispanic. We’ve spent a long time fighting racial/ethnic hatred in this country, and it saddens me to see it return in a new and supposedly legitimate form. Aren’t we better than this?
Accepting pesos as a form of currency right now is the same as saying that it is OK to be here illegally, not willing to assimilate into our country’s culture.The local retail stores in the common markets have always used the American dollar for currency and they are used to it.One of the dangers of diversity in people of its culture and way of life, if you get too much of a separation, you will be at high risk to a division in our nation as a whole and the United States would not be united anymore.
Jed,
Your multiracial “utopia” was always a house of cards, built on a foundation of sand. As such, you shouldn’t be surprised now that it is starting to come apart.
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!
Here in Mexico its common practice to take our American dollars at virtually any city or town. In fact, some vendors even take Canadian cash, why? its good business. If nobody here is stupid enough to mix politics and business, why are we doing it?
No wonder other nations are gaining on us, we seem to simply cannot understand that we are no longer the light of the world.
Ian,Yeah, and there’ll always be a few bigots ineffectually kicking away at it.
“Accepting pesos as a form of currency right now is the same as saying that it is OK to be here illegally”
Not necessarily? How about a business traveler who just returned? That was the reason for my comment above; I wouldn’t mind being able to use my Looneys and Twoneys that way.
Would that be like bigots who call our Arab friends “ragheads”?
Wise,Our country’s culture? There’s lots of them. Go to Lindsborg, go to Caldwell, try Yoder! Those are obvious examples, but there are many regional ethnic cultures here, and always has been. I don’t hear of a movement to ban French in New Orleans or Swedish in Minnesota, or Chinese in San Francisco, or Yiddish in New York.Much of what you’ve said has already been applied to German, Irish, Chinese Italian, Jewish, Polish and Puerto Rican immigrants. No doubt some of your ancestors have been viewed the same way you view Hispanics. Assimilate? Most of us have to some extent and most of us have brought cultural elements from the Old Country. It takes a while, but eventually they get added to that stew pot we call the “American Culture.”I might note that this whole argument started because of a pizza chain in Dallas. Without all those awful Italians, there wouldn’t be a pizza chain in Dallas, and you’d have to find something else to order in on a night like tonight.
Would that be like bigots who call our Arab friends “ragheads”?Or sand niggers?
Hey, capn! Your friends defending your use of ragheads posted at 1:49.
Arab femal impersonator: Draghead?
Arab wife- naghead
The exchange rate ($ to Mexican Peso) appears to be a bit over 11 Mexican Pesos to $1 US; by the time the pizza chain finishes paying its bank the fees for conversion, I suspect it’s breaking even, at best.
Jed –I disagree with what you say; most of those ancestors that immigrated in the United States did so with a desire to be a part of the United States and to be a citizen of the United States.They don’t send billions of dollars back to their country, they don’t refuse to speak English, they don’t demand for special rights, they don’t make a claim that this land belongs to them from a long ago age and say (now today for convenience) we stole it from them and wave Mexican flags above the United States flag.Jed – open your eyes and realize that there are anti-Americans here wanting to disassemble this country.STOP making excuses for them.
If our country decided to make it a law that all cash business transaction take place with the dollar I would support it. If we don’t make a law, I don’t care either. I am concerned about immigration and the tearing apart of our imperfect American culture. We already have an imperfect mess between black and white culture, and we’re the establishment. Legal newcomers should be welcomed into the American culture. I do not welcome people escaping 3rd world conditions to come here and disrupt our America. This country was founded by freedom seeking immigrants. Mexico is a free country. We have diplomatic relations with them. We have no big issues to contend with them, like human rights, etc., so we do not have to accept their insurgance into our society without condition.Tough love now or there will be death to America as we know it today.
Bravo Jim G. Bravo!
This is why its not good:
Peso’s are but a small piece of this nightmare puzzle:
Islamic taxi drivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are refusing passengers carrying alcohol and blind folks with seeing-eye dogs because the animal (dog) is sacrilege according to Sharia law.
The enterprising Muslims during the past year have stranded 100 passengers a month, sometimes for more than an hour, according to the Metropolitan Airports Commission, since three-fourths of the 900 taxi drivers servicing the airport are Somali Muslims who have decided to participate in the new discipline.
To make matters worse, a local outreach director of the ever-obliging Council on American-Islamic Relations, Damon Drake, dismissed the issue, saying, “Now that the Muslims are here, they NEED TO BE ACCOMMODATED.”
The issue originated 12 months ago when the airports commission received a fatwa, or religious edict, from the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society. It stated that “Islamic jurisprudence” prohibits taxi drivers to carry passengers with alcohol “because it involves cooperating in sin.”
It is not possible to massage this into further outrage, but there is plenty of need to wonder about wider meanings and consequences, not to mention why such a situation was allowed to drag on with no decisive action to date.
Even if one could dismiss such shenanigans as a humorous episode that escaped nationwide attention until recently and will soon go away, what of the next challenge?
What if Islamic drivers deny the right of transportation to women wearing short skirts, robed priests and rabbis, or homosexual couples, as indeed has happened in Minneapolis?
What they overlook is that much of the West spent much blood and sweat to construct models of personal freedom and secular space that should not be abandoned by Westerners for some Saudi-style Islamic kingdom of darkness.
In that respect, it is useful to recall comments by Prime Minister Howard of Australia, who recently told Australian Muslims:
“All migrants have to integrate, and that means speaking English as quickly as possible. It means embracing Australian values, and it also means making sure that no matter what the culture of the country from which they come might have been, Australia requires women to be treated fairly and equally and in the same fashion as men. If any migrants that come into this country have a different view, they better get rid of that view very quickly.”
Thats why, even if it has seemingly alluded the crack WE editorial team and most of our Congressional leadership. The continued dismissal of such actions by the media and their continued fawning over all things immigrationwise especially for illegal Mexicans and of course Islamists and their continued SPECIAL Accommodation requirements.
Would the editorialist pause at denigrating the Phelps or Falwell when they need a public spanking…doubt it.
So the taxidriver doesn’t want dogs in the taxi – ohhhhh – too bad. My first wife was a dog, so wsathe third one. I woundldm’t wnat them in a taxi neither. Crap I did want them in bed. People need to get over this shit.
It sounds like maybe Rush Limbaugh needs to go back to the addiction clinic for treatment. Short of that, someone needs to remind to the “take the plank out of [his] own eye” first.
Mass expulsion of the illegal aliens from the United States will commence in the year of our Lord, 2009.
popup!<—-thinks “seer” is Ian Santiago.
popup!<——-very perceptive
lmrfsaao
All over the world, border towns take multiple currencies. It’s a convienence to the customer, and the business will make money on the exchange rate. This should be a non-issue, and the “debate” is fueled by rabid fanatics.
“Wiseman,”Your generalizations are the same ones that have been used by bigots for a century or more to inflame hatred of any group that appears to change their (barely) two-dimensional view of this country. So which is it? Are you a full-fledged racist, or just one of their stupid dupes? In either case, you need a more honest nic! How ’bout “My Opic?”
jed-We are talking about Illegals here. One of the last refuges of a losing argument is the charge of racism. You don’t need to change your nic, jed is perfect for you.Also, has bull snark moved yet?I miss him.
Exchange rates? Foreign currency? As long as they give me change in American currency…
What people should be OUTRAGED about is having to push ‘1#’ to continue in English. Why isn’t that the national language??????
Press 1 for English, press 2 to call INS
You hire illegals to keep up the profit margin.You could hire leagals to do twice as much because the understand and are more ambitious.
YOU’RE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE THAT SEND JOBS OVERSEAS.YOU ARE A CURSE, SCOURGE, AND A TRAITOR THAT SHOULD BE SHOT.