Gary James, owner of Gary's Chicaros in Enid, Oklahoma, might soon be facing some legal issues over alleged discrimination. |
The place has been in business for 44 years, but I predict it will close soon.
Why? Because it seems the owner of the place, Gary James, appears to hate almost everybody, according to television station KFOR in Oklahoma City.
It now seems inevitable that someone will file a discrimination complaint against the restaurant and you will no longer have the chance to sit down to some grub and listen to Gary James um, compelling thoughts on gays, blacks, lazy people, people with disabilities and a host of other n'er do wells he hates.
This whole thing started recently when a customer named Matt Gard, who said he'd been stopping by Gary's Chicaros for years, was turned away because he now has a disability. Though James said something about Gard's friends being loud, but who knows?
Gard told KFOR that James doesn't like to serve people with disabilities, minorities, gay people and others. It's really quite a list.
For his part, James pretty much admited to KFOR he doesn't like people with disabilities.
"Well, if you work, you own a business, pay your taxes, you're more than welcome here. If you're on welfare, stay at home and spend my money there."
Um, if they're spending your money, Gary James, wouldn't you want them to spend it in your restaurant, so you get some of it back?
In 2009, he told News9 in Oklahoma that he is not homophobic or racist, he just doesn't want gay people in his restaurant.
He also said at the time that anyone who wears a hat inside a building is gay. Um, I know plenty of people who I've seen wearing hats inside buildings, and I never thought they were gay. Neither did they.
Maybe they have different rules and signals in Oklahoma. The closest I've been to Oklahoma is South Dakota, which is pretty much as Midwestern as the Sooner State. I've eaten in restaurants in South Dakota where plenty of guys were wearing hats and few, if any, seemed gay to me.
And I thought I had a pretty good gaydar. But not as good as Gary James' apparently.
There was a flurry of attention toward James and his attitudes toward all kinds of people Different From Him back in 2009 when he was running for Enid City Council, but that attention died with a wimper.
This time, however, that pesky Internet is flaring up big time with the latest stuff that's going on with Gary James' attitudes. What started as a good local story from KFOR has now swept across the Internet. Popular aggragate sites like Gawker and Wonkette have seized on it, and it will be minutes before the main stream media catches up with it.
So there will be an outcry. Someone will file a discrimination lawsuit and Gary's Chicaros will probably be no more. (Already, KFOR posted a helpful link on their Gary Chicaros story to the Oklahoma Attorney General's office)
Gary James will become a hero to the allegedly oppressed far right wing and the rest of us will forget about him.
But some of us will have fun with him first. Already it's started. For instance, the Gary's Chicanos Facebook page has been hacked.
It is now listed on Facebook as a gay bar and fake "reviews" are pouring in with (definitely untrue but sarcastic and hilarious) stories about how Gary James likes having, um, intimate contact with certain male customers.
So, next time you're in Enid, Oklahoma, it looks as if you'll need to find another place for food and cocktails, because Gary Chicaros days seem to be numbered.
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