A rchive Date
[ 08-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Suspensions? What a Hoot!
By STEVE SIMMONS
Toronto Sun
June 7, 2000
It's like the commercial almost says. A watch: $200. A hockey stick: $26. A trip to the Canada Museum of Nature: $15.
Lunch at Hooters: A two-day suspension from school. The embarrassment surrounding the situation: Priceless.
They were simply boys being boys, those 14 and 15-year-old kids from Cornwall who took a bus ride on a school trip to the Museum of Nature in Ottawa and somehow found themselves in the news. With a whole different view of nature. And all they did was go for lunch. Hamburgers and poutine.
If you want to discipline these kids for something, discipline them for going to Hooters and not ordering the wings.
Now that's an issue I'd be concerned about. It speaks more about intellect than behaviour - the boobs.
According to one of the parents of the Hooters' Nine, her son asked for permission before going for lunch. His teacher said fine. The students passed on McDonald's and other fast-food establishments for a restaurant known as much for its atmosphere as for its food.
The school tells a different story. They say one student yelled on the bus, "Let's go to Hooters'' and the students were then told they weren't allowed.
Whatever the story, the kids were busted for two days, suspended from school in late May for what the principal at St. Lawrence High School called conduct "injurious to moral tone.''
Upon making this high-and-mighty assessment, the principal, Katherine Burke, then did the only appropriate thing she could. She went and hid. Wouldn't talk to the parents. Wouldn't take their calls. Wouldn't explain herself to anyone.
To me, that's conduct injurious to the moral tone of parents, but no one's about to suspend her for rash judgment. Burke didn't talk at all until an appeal to the school board was held yesterday in Cornwall. (The board was expected to announce its decision today.)
By then, the national news cameras were all over this silly caper. An appeal, still awaiting a decision, after the fact. This won't change the fact the kids were suspended for two days for eating lunch at what Hooters themselves describe as a "family restaurant." They just want the suspensions stricken from all future records.
Terry Fraser would like to laugh about this, but he's been told to keep his mouth shut and his smile to himself. He happens to manage the Hooters in question, on St. Laurent St. in Ottawa. This would all be very funny if it weren't so ridiculous.
"We kind of want to stay out of this," Fraser says. "We're a neighbourhood restaurant, we have elderly customers. We don't want to get between the students, the parents, the school and the board.
"I'll let them settle all this."
Now make no mistake here. Hooters is a restaurant that sells food and flesh. They have 252 locations in 10 countries. They sponsor golf tournaments and race cars and power boats and breasts. Their menu is quickie food. The waitresses, hired to meet a certain specificity, wear short-shorts and tank tops. There is no nudity, only a lot of imagination. Turn on Much Music on any afternoon and Mariah Carey is selling more sex than you'll ever see at Hooters, and if you suspended kids for watching Much there'd be nobody in
school these days.
In fairness to Burke, the principal, she may just be an educational ostrich who has not taken her head out of the sand. There once was an establishment in Cornwall called Hooterz. It was a bar that has since turned into a sports bar. Upstairs is a place called the Northway Hotel, where women dance naked. Principal Burke, upon hearing the story, may have confused Hooterz for Hooters and now has to stick with her decision.
Darlene Stone is a parent of one of the suspended students. She isn't amused. She has taken her family to Hooters before. "I don't think there's anything wrong with it ... they didn't break any laws."
If you want to ask a question as a parent, ask this one: If your child is on a school-supervised field trip, should the students not be supervised over lunch?
If Principal Burke is asking any questions here, the questions should be asked of the teachers, not the students.
"The whole thing is a little drastic," said Stuart Maybury, who manages the Hooters on Keele St. "It's just a restaurant. It's not a strip joint.
"I have a 13-year-old boy and he and his buddies have come to my restaurant to eat all kinds of times. They don't think twice about it. I don't think twice about it. They're kids - they have to eat."
Steve Simmons can be reached by e-mail at ssimmons@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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