Bill seeks small-business group-insurance access

Nation's Restaurant News, March 17, 2003

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, introduced a companion bill in the Senate March 6 to a House bill submitted Feb. 11, with both seeking to reduce the ranks of the nation's 41 million uninsured people by giving small businesses leverage to obtain health coverage through group-insurance plans.

If the bills are passed, restaurateurs could lower their costs by purchasing health coverage for employees through national or state restaurant associations. Several states already allow for association health plans.

The co-sponsors of Snowe's bill, S545, were Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Jim Talent, R-Mo. The sponsors of the House bill, HR660, were Reps. Ernest Fletcher, R-Ky.; Calvin Dooley, D-Calif.; Sam Johnson, R-Texas; and Nydia Valazquez, D-N.Y

The National Restaurant Association supports both measures.

The Voyageur restaurant in St. Clair, Mich., removed four French wines from the menu as an expression of support for employees and customers who have family members in the military, according to owner Mike LaPorte.

Meanwhile, the Lentini restaurant in New York took all French wines and champagnes off its menu to protest France's opposition to the U.S.-led coalition arrayed against Iraq.

Operators of two family-oriented restaurants in the Southeast -- Ken Wagner, owner of Roxy's in West Palm Beach, Fla., and Neal Rowland, proprietor of Cubbies Cafe in Beaufort, N.C. -- became media celebrities when they took anti-French actions in recent weeks.

Wagner was shown on local TV pouring French wines into the street in front of Roxy's, which he has owned for three decades. That action reportedly inspired a surge of patronage.

"I felt like I had to do something," Wagner said. "The news staff came and filmed what I was feeling in my heart."

A couple of days after the story aired, Wagner said he got a call from a French journalist asking why he hated the French.

"I told him we love the French, and that he should remember 1945," Wagner said. "The American soldiers who died there proved what we have always felt for the French."

Rowland, the 26-year-old proprietor of Cubbies, rewrote its menus to read "freedom fries" rather than french fries. He said he acted in large part for his military customers, some of whom are connected with the nearby Cherry Point Air Station as well as Morehead City Port, where two large Navy ships are awaiting deployment.

"A lot of women and families are coming in for dinner," he said. "The husbands are overseas now, and I want to support what they are doing."

The few objections Rowland has received have been dwarfed by a positive response from all over the country, he said.

Meanwhile, restaurateurs in New York, Chicago, San Diego and other cities -- and at least one national chain -- have been the objects of protests over France's objection to the Bush administration's war stance. But some restaurateurs have received supportive phone calls from loyal guests and even strangers.

Nat Comisar, chairman of Maisonette in Cincinnati, said a man phoned anonymously to say he hoped that the restaurant doesn't succumb to anti-French fervor and that it would stick to its long-held French focus.

However, IHOP Corp. has felt the sting of guest complaints over the new Stuffed French Toast item offered at its International House of Pancakes chain, according to chief executive Julia Stewart. Some believe the dish should be renamed "Stuffed American Toast," she said.

And George Briguet, the Swiss chef-owner of Le Perigord in New York, said some patrons have raised their eyebrows at the richness of his butter and asked whether he's serving a French product. One guest even suggested that Briguet use his French wines to wash his car.

In San Diego, 150 Grand Cafe received a critical response to its recent e-mail promoting Saturday noon wine tastings, including one featuring Loire Valley vintages. "No, we won't be there," said the e-mail response. "Bad. Bad. Bad. Why are you supporting France?"

However, chef Paul Kahan of the Chicago restaurant Blackbird, who identifies with anti-war efforts, said he would close before taking French wines from his list.

French-born Joel Antunes, the chef-proprietor of Atlanta's popular brasserie Joel, who married an American and became a citizen, said, "I love America because it was the best place in the world for a young kid like me to have an opportunity. But because I was born in Europe after World War II, I have always believed war is a bad thing."

Antunes said he has seen a falloff in sales of French wine, cheese and other products. "In the last three or four weeks, people are buying less French sparkling water, but I have never boycotted anything," he said. "This story is thousands of years old. I was little when my father and grandfather were in the war in Europe, but I learned it's not the people who start the wars."

Bret Thorn and Carolyn Walkup contributed to this report.