The National Organization for Women has filed a complaint against Hooters for being an improper dining venue for minors.
A California chapter of NOW argues that Hooters is unsuitable for kids and violates sexual entertainment law regulations, and therefore no one under 18 should be allowed inside select California venues.
“They also display and sell products of prurient nature, including T-shirts in child sizes with statements such as ‘Future Hooters Girl,’” the NOW complaint reads.
Though Hooters describes itself as “not a typical family restaurant,” they offer a children’s menu and booster seats, and kids make up ten percent of the parties served.
Penny Nance, the CEO of Concerned Women for America, told The Daily Caller that she finds it strange that NOW would choose this fight when their are more “insidious threats” to children out there.
“Funny how NOW suddenly has become exercised about Hooters and their large buffalo wings when all around them more insidious threats to kids abound, from Hollywood’s sexualization of underage girls to child predators lurking in the dark shadows of the Internet to a culture that promotes and accepts over one million abortions per year,” Nance told TheDC.
Hooters executives and higher-ups are calling NOW’s complaints “ridiculous,” “a waste of taxpayer money,” and “merely last gasp efforts by an organization that lost this battle decades ago.”
“The Hooters brand of sex appeal is wholesome and that of the all-American cheerleader, not a seedy strip club,” Mike McNeil, the vice president of Hooters of America, said in a recent statement. “It is time for NOW to accept the fact that the public likes Hooters and there is really nothing they can do about it. Hooters is no more in violation of California’s adult entertainment codes than the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition is.”
This isn’t the first instance in which NOW has gone after Hooters. NOW’s “Love Your Body” campaign instructs women to “picket ‘men’s clubs,’ Hooters or any business that exploits women’s bodies.”