Marks and Spencer support new 'Hooters' in Bristol

[JessinAvalon]

Dear all
This is my first post on here so I hope I am doing this right!

I live in Bristol and, last week, 'Hooters' was granted a licence to open in the city centre. The site is virtually opposite 3 apartment blocks, the lower floors of which are social housing and children are living in them.

What's most disappointing is that Marks and Spencer are leasing the site to 'Hooters'. They have been e-mailed by many concerned people to ask if they will reconsider leasing the building but they have just replied saying it is a "commercial decision" (as if that makes it ok!). In Sheffield, a 'Hooters' didn't even make it to application stage because the developer (Ask Pizza) realised that it would be better not to be associated with a company like 'Hooters'.

Marks and Spencer don't seem that concerned, however. Although they have signed up to the "Let Girls Be Girls" Mumsnet campaign they are not concerned about a company which sells merchandise including babygros which say "Future Hooters Girl" and "Does my butt look big in this?"

I have written to Marks and Spencer telling them that I won't be shopping in their stores again. If you feel strongly about this, please e-mail:

[email protected].

'Hooters' tries to sell itself as a family friendly restaurant but it is anything but. The Hooters in Nottingham attracts mainly stag parties and football fans. Hooters Girls take part in bikini contests and iced wet t-shirt competitions (the t-shirts are put in the freezers before the girls wear them). 'Hooters' has links to Playboy magazine....I could go on.....

I think Marks and Spencer should be shamed for facilitating this company's expansion into Bristol. They are selling women and girls down the river by leasing to this company and all just to make a "quick buck".

Thanks everyone.

"Yes, that's just lovely isn't it. There you go, my objection to it all encapsulated - customer sums up his anticipation of Hooters opening with 'I cannot wait for bitches with big tits to seve me food and beer.'

Are you reading this M&S? This is what you're enabling and I will never shop at your stores again because of it."

That's exactly it, Lenin. Anyone who's finding it hard to understand why we give a toss about this - that's why. It'll be someone's teenage daughter serving this man if Hooters opens, some 17 year old who's being looked down on as a "big-titted bitch" purely because she's had the nerve to try to earn a living. The entire set-up at Hooters encourages this. Sure, you can get arseholesque customers anywhere, but Hooters provides a home and an air of legitimacy to this kind of attitude :(

Well, precisely, Elephants. I have had a few lecherous, horrible clients in my day but at least in my line of work, it is considered to be unacceptable and such a client would be thrown out of the practice by the scruff on the neck.

Hooters gives them a platform.

"Bitches with big tits"?

Ah - that's sold it to me now! I'm giving up my job to go and work there!

The myth of the ugly, embittered feminist looms large.

Mike1233 has never seen what any of us look like so he is wrong to assume that none of us could pass the "job interview" (if we chose to).

Leading feminist Gloria Steinem worked undercover as a bunny girl in the early 1960s to expose a similar sexist work environment in her subsequent magazine article.

Just what kind of man has to pay women to talk to them anyway?

Forgive me for making assumptions about their looks/character!

Apologies, Mike, you're right. Correcting your grammar was childish and didn't add anything to the argument.

I suppose I could give up my good salary in a professional field and apply to Hooters so I can spend my day being leered at for minimum wage. Hmm, doesn't really appeal.

Thanks though, you have quite neatly justified our argument.

"Just what kind of man has to pay women to talk to them anyway?"

Er, men like Mike?

Bristol's local paper has just picked up via the national press on the M&S thing. Thought you would enjoy a response from a thoughtful local: (PS DON'T give them any oxygen by commenting on their site, it just encourages the Mike types)

"It really annoys me the way that the media now quote things like Mumsnet and pretend it has any power or authority whatsoever. Lazy journalism...

"Mumsnet is a bunch of housewives with too much time on their hands. The type of people who have a baby as their Facebook profile picture and think that everyone is really interested in their offspring?s latest escapades. I bet M&S are quaking in their boots at the prospect of a handful of housewives not shopping at their stores!"

ha ha, it's housewives that do the shopping though innit?

I can't imagine that M&S's core customer is a a bloke like Mike.

I love the mysogynist assumption that if you are not in favour of Hooters you must be a jealous, ugly housewife. It seems we haven't actually moved passed the 1950s.

*""Just what kind of man has to pay women to talk to them anyway?"

Er, men like Mike?"*

No, surely not? He sounds so utterly charming!

Damn, it's a hard life when you get to choose between being painted as a despised 'housewife' or a despised 'big titted bitch'. Still, I'm sure he's right. If they employ 40 Hooters Girls in Bristol then that's 40 grateful big-spenders who will be brand loyal to M&S - I'm only a woman so my maths isn't up to much but I'm sure that will cancel out the family food and clothes expenditure of a 'handful' of 'housewives' whose brand loyalty, built up over years if not generations, has evaporated permanently.

Yes, a real catch.

Yes, we should extend a special thanks to Marks and Spencer for ensuring that the Gene Hunt attitudes of people like Mike are perpetuated for another few years to come.

I wonder how the board members of M&S would feel if it was any of their daughters being described as a "big titted bitch".

Have you got a link to the new Bristol local paper's article, MumBristol?

Ah, found it:

www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/M-S-facing-protest-row-new-Hooters/article-2662383-detail/article.html

Here it is

The comments are quite funny. They are obviously getting riled that we not responding to them.

One of them (it is the usual bunch every time) commented in a previous article that some of us (who were polite and respectful in our responses) were spoiling for a fight. And they were the ones reeling out the insults and abuse.

We're not feeding them this time. The only thing we've done is to report a few of the worst comments and had them removed.

Have also found these:

swns.com/ms-slammed-for-letting-premises-to-hooters-200813.html

www.southwestbusiness.co.uk/tourism/M-S-facing-protest-row-new-Hooters/article-2662901-detail/article.html

Interesting....I've tried to access the first link but I'm at work and it's coming up a warning that the article contains offensive material so I can't view it.

I don't understand...Hooters is just harmless fun, isn't it? And the USP are the cuddly owls that they sell to children and that the bar is named after?

I'll have to tell our IT department that they've got it all wrong.

it is really funny the way they are an ordinary restaurant when it suits them and something else when it suits them, isn't it?

When it comes to getting a license they are just an ordinary restaurant, but eg in that discrimination case they are arguing that the waitresses are not, in fact, waitresses but entertainers so it is ok to sack them for being fat.

In reply to my this:

Dear Mr Mason,

I find it extraordinary that you feel an association with the "Hooters"
brand is a good commercial decision when the company displays such utter
contempt towards women, who are your primary customer base. "Ask Pizza"
pulled out of its connection to Hooters in Sheffield. It is a shame that
in the case of Marks and Spencer "commerce" trumps "ethics"

Yours sincerely,

I just got this:

Dear Sakura

Thank you for replying to my colleague George. I'm afraid he's out of
the office, so I am responding on his behalf.

I am sorry that you will not be shopping with us any more. While this is
of course your choice , it is disappointing that you feel unable to
support M&S because of our commercial lease to Gallus restaurants.

I've noted your further views but I'm afraid I'm unable to add to the
comments in our previous email.

Kind regards,

Simon Hoskins
Executive Office
Your M&S Customer Service

ah! That old chestnut- women with too many choices

Have any of you actually ever been to Hooters? I love Hooters! I was so excited when I heard that they were opening one in Bristo; and that they are planning on 36 more. I just hope one will be in Kent. Hooters is great value for money with delicious food. The atmosphere is great as well as the service. It's alot better than the likes of Frankie and Bennies or TGI Fridays where I find that they are so overpriced for average tasting food and the waiters / waitresses are like robots!!! I say open one in every town!!