 Hi, I'm David Cantor with the Law Offices of David Michael Cantor and welcome to my blog. Today's topic has to do with an article I read in the September 2011 GQ Magazine. And it was entitled Diner for Shmucks. And it was written by Alan Richmond, who was an excellent food critic. This particular one was interesting. I had never seen this before, but basically he was talking about a bad experience in a restaurant where he was ultimately accused with a criminal act. What happened was he went to the M Wells restaurant in Queens and it's one of those hip diners that's been converted that serves all sorts of different foods. He said the first time he went there there was some great food and some food that was so-so, but he was impressed enough to contact the owners after the meal to try and set up an interview and talk with them. They had said they had recognized him and they were gracious and he was going to come back with a group, this being a couple other restaurant professionals and somebody else in his group. And then he was going to set up an interview after that completely off-site with the restaurant's owners. Well, he came back the second time with his group and apparently what happened, according to the GQ article, is once they got their waters, 45 minutes went by before they even got service and they became uncomfortable and somewhat upset and a member of his party began making statements expressing his disapproval. Now Alan said he wishes that person wouldn't have spoken up and you know, it just makes for an uncomfortable evening. But he did finally get served food. He does a review where some of the food he says is excellent and some he says is just downright not good. So it appeared to be a very professional review. Well, here's where it gets interesting. After he goes home, he gets an email from the owner, one of the owners, the wife, and she states, one of those servers, a female received a hearty pat on the ass from you. That my friends is a criminal allegation. That is sex abuse in Arizona. I'm sure there's a statute in New York that's titled something close where you're not allowed to grope somebody. It's a harmful or offensive touching at the very least, so it's disorderly conduct. But basically he gets this accusation. He is frozen in his tracks according to his article and he emails back. You know, he states that he says, this is not true. I want to meet and confront this person myself. Now under the Constitution, there's a confrontation clause which states if you're accused, you're allowed to confront your accusers at trial. So I guess he's probably not thinking of the Constitution. He's acting like any of us. I want to see somebody face to face who said these things about me. He says in his article that the indictment from the owners was wickedly reckless and I agree. There was a couple of theories that were advanced both by him and by the people he was eating with. One theory was that the waitress created a fabrication to deflect attention from the appalling job she had done. Secondly, his theory was that the owner made it all up in order to intimidate me, stop a restaurant critic from writing an unflattering review and that was his theory. And again, those are both theories. Now when you do criminal defense, you look for certain things. As in poker, you look for a tell or when you interview somebody, if they roll their eyes and look to the sides, you look for certain physical cues. Well, as an attorney, you look for written cues also. And given the fact that he was ultimately fair in his review and very professional of the food review and the depth at which he gave his explanations and printed both emails, I'd say he's, in my opinion, coming off as very truthful. Now there was a final email sent by the owner that said, apparently upon requesting your check, you tapped one of our female servers inappropriately. It completely changed from a hearty pat on the ass to tapped her inappropriately without any other description. The owners also said they didn't want any further contact. Now where it gets interesting is Richmond completes his article by saying that there's really something else at work here. It has to do with how service has declined in America. And he's talking about the hipster restaurant mentality and the disastrous decline in service in America. And I agree wholeheartedly. He states too many new restaurants should have a motto that reads, too cool to care and that these restaurants are not held accountable. I agree with him. I've seen bad service popping up more and more and more and not only restaurants but in all other facets of American society. I've also seen it happen in law firms. I've actually had employees, staff members, where they come on. They don't learn to do it our way. And basically, they're too cool to care. Well, they don't work for me. They're out of here. As with the old adage, the customer is always right, up to a certain degree. Well here it appears that the customer was instantly wrong, didn't matter. And I hope that Allen's reputation is not scathed by this at all. I hope that this increases his reputation as somebody who's very forthright to print everything, and I admire him for that. And I hope this restaurant M Wells, well I'm just not gonna eat there. And I just got back from New York and I can tell you, although it sounded intriguing at first, I just don't care to patronize places where they accuse people of criminal conduct without coming up with hard facts. But that's what I think. Tell me what you think.