Hurry Down Doomsday

Last Saturday, prompted by an early morning walk with my children, I wrote the following letter to my Alderman, with copies sent to the chair of Milwaukee's common council and the office of the mayor.

Dear Alderman D'Amato:

I am writing to protest the name of a business advertised to be coming soon to 2014 N. Farwell Ave., in the space formerly occupied by Sol Fire and La Casita restaurants.

While walking my 15-month-old twins past the property, I noted that the coming business -- advertised by hand-drawn signs -- is shown to be called "Pepe's Pink Taco." This is a clear and vulgar reference to female genitalia, one which does not even rise to the level of "double entendre." Restaurants like "Hooters" or "Cans," while having equally sophomoric names, at least pretend to refer to owls or beer cans. With "Pepe's Pink Taco," there is no second or acceptable meaning other than one which offends and coarsens our neighborhood. Also, unlike the city's locations for Hooters or Cans, this restaurant is not located in a chiefly commercial area; it is directly next to and across from residential properties.

Another indicator of how inappropriate a name this is can be demonstrated by typing the business' name into an Internet search engine: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Pepe%27s+Pink+Taco&btnG=Search.
As you'll see, the results (aside from a similarly named restaurant in Arizona) link to "Offensive T-shirts" and (sic) "sex tuna vulgar dirty funny." I shudder to think what sort of clientele might be drawn to such a name.

I live within two blocks of this establishment, and therefore I walk, ride, and drive past it nearly every day, as do my wife and children. While I do not relish the idea of having to explain this business' name to my children on some future date, what's particularly troublesome is that this business reinforces and profits from a cultural race to the lowest common denominator. The name is meant to shock and titillate, and does so at the expense of the civility of the neighborhood and at the expense of respect for women. This is not something to which I would willingly expose my children, most particularly because I believe it demeans and insults their mother, grandmothers, and all other women who fight against objectification and indecency.

I am a great believer in free speech, but I am also an advocate of responsible corporate citizenship. The proprietor of this business, whoever he or she may be, is only exercising one of those things, and I think it ought to be a role of city government and the Common Council to impress upon them the importance of the second.

If there is another person or agency to whom I should be addressing this complaint, I would be glad to know of it. I thank you for your attention.

Best Regards,
Brian Hinshaw
//my address//
Milwaukee, WI

To their credit, the alderman's office responded to me fairly quickly with information about when the referenced establishment would go before the licensing committee as well as other information that would help me form some small measure of protest.

It should be noted that, since the time of my original e-mail, other references to this establishment have appeared on the web, making my claims slightly inaccurate. One curious link turned up a message board discussion on milwaukeenights.com about my letter, even though I had not forwarded my message to that site nor given anyone else permission to do so.

At any rate, I logged some vacation time from work on Tuesday morning to attend the licencing board -- which turned out to be really interesting to watch, and is regularly broadcast on our local cable Channel 26. Since other licencing issues were taking up more time than expected, D'Amato convened a group discussion in the hallway between myself and other neighborhood representatives and the proprietors of the forthcoming business. There was some talk of noise concerns given the residential setting and the outdoor patio, but my concern about the name -- shared at least in part by other neighbors -- was largely waved away. The proprietors are clearly banking on the "shock and awe" (their words) of their name to draw in a "hip and edgy" crowd. My concerns about the coarsening of my neighborhood (to say nothing of my city, my nation, and our culture) weren't seriously addressed, although one of the proprietors made a confusing suggestion that I somehow utilize the V-chip on the actual world.

D'Amato closed the debate by (rightly) pointing out that this was a matter of taste and that the licencing board could not legislate a name change, what with freedom of speech and all that. I accepted (and continue to accept) this outcome, although I will retain my right to continue to mention that this business' choice of names speaks to a lack of neighborliness and a cheapening of civic culture with which I am forced to comply without the ability to, say, V-chip it away.

Anywhoodles, such was my experience throwing pebbles in the raging river of crass commericalism. What shall we do with all this useless beauty?

I hope Elizabeth Edwards, fighting a different front in the same war, has better luck.