ARTICLE TAKEN FROM LEXUS-NEXUS AND:
Telegraph Herald Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA) November 16, 1995,
Thursday SECTION: News, Pg. a 11 LENGTH: 335 words
HEADLINE: Hooter wages war against idea to hire male servers
BYLINE: Associated Press DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY: - The Hooters restaurant chain opened a $1 million advertising war against the federal anti-discrimination agency on Wednesday. It argues that the government panders to the politically correct by pressing Hooters, which capitalizes on female sexuality, to hire male waiters too. "Hooter guys? Get a grip!," chanted several waitresses including Meghan O'Malley-Barnard of Boca Raton, Fla., who appeared as a featured speaker at a Hooters news conference. She argued that the money she earns as a Hooters waitress allows her to pursue a career as a professional dancer. She said she earns $2.13 an hour plus tips ranging from $75 to $150 an evening. Were the restaurant that serves up sexiness with its hamburgers to hire men as waiters, she said, it could harm her career. "It might be politically correct to hire Hooters Guys but Hooters wouldn't be Hooters if they did," said O'Malley-Barnard. "I came here from Boca Raton, to tell the EEOC bureaucrats to really quit messing with my job."
Company vice president Mike McNeil said the squabble between the privately held business, which doesn't disclose its profits, has been on a slow burn since 1991, when a Republican commission member asked the agency to investigate whether the restaurant chain's hiring practices amounted to sex discrimination. The firm has spent $1 million in legal fees associated with the investigation - and has committed to spend at least another $1 million to advertise against it, McNeil said. He likened the company's right to hire only women to wait tables to a women's health spa's prerogative to only hire women to work in the locker room. Hooters is based in Atlanta. It has 172 restaurants, both franchisees and company owned, in 37 states across the nation. But the greatest number by far - 37 outlets - are in Florida. McNeil boasted that it was begun when the founders went out onto a Clearwater, Fla., beach, found the winner of a local bikini contest and made her their waitperson role-model.