Some PACs rely on people’s not knowing who is funding the PAC. For example, oil companies and oil executives that fund PACs that argue against the theory of global warming. If the funding sources are exposed, the PACs’ ability to influence public opinion can damaged or destroyed.
Isn’t there a bit of blackmail involved here? “Get out or I will make your face so well known that you won’t be able to do your job well.” (paraphrasing)
There is no typical 85 year old woman. You are stereotyping.
Aren’t weight issues now sometimes considered a disability? I would think twice before throwing an obese person from my restaurant. It doesn’t make logical good business sense either.
Reminds me of when I worked for hotels and they would send inspectors and if you recognized the inspector you were supposed to tell them so they could disqualify themselves and go away, that way corporate could send someone else.
Like anyone would actually DO this? LOL
They just sent out the message to the crew the inspector was on property so be on your toes 
I don’t get the impression that is what happened. My understanding is that the owner just took and the picture and told the critic to get out. The critic was not offered the opportunity to prevent the posting by leaving.
Wait a tick, do we have evidence that this reviewer was unfair with other restaurants?
Dunno how you enforce it. But one thing’s for sure, a restaurant known for going out of its way to reveal a food critic’s identity is obviously miffed at the reviews it’s been getting, i.e., probably runs a pigsty of an establishment and likely serves slurry.
I for one wouldn’t eat at place that’s more interested in ousting restaurant critics than doing its job properly.
Stupid is that stupid does!
IANAL, but it seems to me as if she would have legal recourse to sue him. Not because she was refused service, he was well within his right to do that. But in taking her photo, posting it online and releasing her phone number, all actions clearly intended to cause undue harm to her livelihood, provided she could prove actual damages, he wouldn’t have much of a defense. I doubt she’ll sue because I doubt this really did cause actual damage to her but it sure as hell sealed this restaurant’s fate. His actions were petty, callous and immature. Couple that with the reports of awful service and ridiculously overpriced food that’s served in microscopic portions and the general trend that most restaurants don’t stick around for long and I’d recommend he find another line of work.
It is unacceptable to review his food ?
There seems no difference between his action and his putting up photographs of Food Health Inspectors to warn other restauranteurs so they may recognize them in advance.
Like I said earlier, just showing damages isn’t enough to be able to say you’ll win a lawsuit. I’m a small business owner myself, do I have grounds to sue anyone who causes damages to my business? Including my competitors, who cause damages just by out-competing me? I don’t think so. Like I said before, you have to show that the action that caused damages was some sort of civil tort in and of itself.
I believe the terminology I have seen is that for civil awards you need to show that the damages done were a result of the tortfeasor’s breach of duty. Can you show that in the case of the restaurateur who did this? I genuinely don’t know the particulars of laws about taking pictures of people, but just because anonymity helps your profession doesn’t mean you are entitled to it.
For example I can’t imagine a stage magician whose gimmick was wearing a mask, or a masked professional wrestler, would have grounds to sue a journalist or any private person with a camera who was able to snap a photo of them and reveal their identity to the world.
As for the business end of it, “it depends.” By and large restaurant reviews are good for a business, unless the reviews are just absolutely terrible. Most reviews find a few things to nit pick about, but I think most of the reviews are pretty good about balancing the quality of the food and etc with the menu price and other concerns. (Meaning the reviewers are good at having the proper expectation for a $8.00 meal versus a $50 meal.) I think most restaurateurs benefit more than they suffer from food critics. At the same time, like I said upthread there have been celebrity chefs who were known for kicking critics out of their establishment. I believe Gordon Ramsay kicked a critic out of his London restaurant like a decade ago, because the guy had said something in one of his articles that offended Gordon on a personal level. I believe the critic being kicked out was actually shown on the documentary “Boiling Point” and that restaurant went on to become Michelin 3-Starred after the incident and was the springboard for Ramsay’s wider success in life. So kicking out a critic isn’t any guarantee of failure. If the restaurant in question here has already received many bad reviews, this just brings them even more bad publicity obviously.
Pretty much anyone in the food industry knows who the local health inspectors are, from my experiences back in the day it was unheard of for health inspectors to not be known pretty much right away. Obviously if it was an inspector’s first time in a given area, he’d be able to operate incognito, but most areas don’t get new inspectors all that often.
The big difference I also can see is health inspectors are public government officials. Meaning posting stuff online to try and “out” them could be interpreted as trying to prevent a state official from going about their business. That could in fact be against statute and thus be a crime. A food critic is not an agent of the state.
I quoted this post, but there are several in here with a similar point of view, so this can be considered a response to all of them.
I agree that it should not be forbidden to mention someone’s name in a news story. She is a “public figure” in the sense that she writes for a newspaper and is a restaurant critic.
But there is a difference between mentioning her name in an article about restaurant critics, or posting in your blog that such and such a restaurant critic is unfair, and posting her picture, if she is trying to remain anonymous. It seems to me that posting the picture, in this case, is similar to posting something you would like to keep private, like the home address, or the private phone number. You don’t need to have her photo to report on her. I think it should be OK for her to say “don’t print my picture.”
Both of them would wreck her anonymity. There’s a logic to food critics wanting to remain anonymous (even if it’s apparently kind of an industry fiction that they’re really anonymous), but I am not sure she’s entitled to anonymity just because she wants it.
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that mentioning her name in an article would wreck her anonymity just as much as publishing her photo? Because I don’t think that’s true. She already criticizes restaurants and writes articles using her “real” name, so using her real name to criticize her in your own blog post isn’t revealing anything that she hasn’t revealed herself. Revealing what she looks like is different.
A newspaper and blog should not have different rights. The owner’s post was on matter of public concern. Publically releasing the identity of the critic in a way that includes what she looks like allows the public (other resturuants) to monitor her activities. What the critic looks like is necessary to monitor her activites. Restaurants have no obligation to allow this critic to review their restaurants. The only way they can prevent her from reviewing them is if they know what she looks like. The owner’s post did not do anything except give other owners the information necessary to make an informed choice. Having her looks out there also gives restaurants a chance to respond to any claims that she makes about their restaurants in an informed manner–if the critic claims her fish was undercooked, without knowing what she looks like the restaurant does not which of all their female customers made the claim. If they know what she looks like they might remember that her fish was not undercooked and that she did not, in fact, even order what she claimed she did. A single instance of getting the facts wrong might not mean anything, but if the critic consistently gets details wrong, then her credibility is called into question. Without knowing what she looks like, restaurants cannot monitor if she is getting details wrong.
Her home address and phone number might not need to be released, but her identity is absolutely a matter of public concern.
I guess I assumed the article would include a photo. If it doesn’t, then there would probably not be an issue. Just for reference, here’s a New Yorker article about Michelin inspectors and what they do to stay anonymous. (Of course, they don’t get bylines, so that’s different.) [URL=“Why Restaurant Critics Need Anonymity | The New Yorker”]The author wrote a complementary side piece discussing that issue:[//URL]
It doesn’t work like that. Managers of public accommodations have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason or no reason. Except, they are not allowed to discriminate against certain protected classes, including race, religion, color, ethnicity, creed, and age. A pattern of refusing service to all black people is not going to be saved by claiming that you just happened not to like each of them personally. The evidence will out.
No, the press has the same rights everyone else does. That means that they have a right to write what they want.
Legal liability under what theory?
Defamation? A restaurant review is an opinion. There is no legal liability for opinions. Unless the restaurateur can show that the critique incorporated intentional lies regarding facts, then there’s no liability.
The one has no bearing on the other.
I wasn’t differentiating between newspaper and blog post, I was differentiating between article mentioning the critic’s name, without a photo, and article mentioning the critic’s name, with her photo.
Here you raise an interesting point, that a restaurant should have the right to know who food critics are. Would you extend this to saying that people in general (e.g. government officials) should have a right to know who journalists are? e.g. to take a famous example, Woodward and Bernstein investigating Watergate, did they try to get some information without revealing that they are journalists, and would it have been beneficial for the people being investigated to disseminate their photo telling people “don’t talk to the Washington Post”? Do US laws say anything about this?
I have never heard of any federal or state laws that would protect journalists from having their images/identities revealed by offended subjects.
A restaurant does not have a right to know the identities of food critics, but a restaurant has the right to release the identities of critics. A food critic influences public opinion by scrutinizing restaurants, and she cannot shield herself from scrutiny just because she wants to. She made the choice to enter the public arena, and she has to live with the consequences.
If an investigative reporter wants to remain anonymous, she needs to keep her identity secret. If the government legally finds out who she is, the government can out her. If another writer, newspaper, or blog finds out who she is, they can out her.
The government (and other institutions) often tell their personnel they cannot talk to reporters or only to certain reporters. Felt needed to remain anonymous for a reason–he was committing a crime by talking to Woodward.
Woodward and Bernstein were not secretive about being reports. They published their first story on June 19, 1972 (two days after the break in.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2002/05/31/AR2005111001228.html
And closer to today, Bradley Manning is probably going to go to military prison for disseminating information.
Edit: “being reports” in my last post = “being reporters”