Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Bob Filner’s Too Bad for Hooters

Hooters is drawing a line in the sand — and his name is San Diego Mayor Bob Filner.

The jiggle joint restaurant chain, not normally known for its political correctness, has announced it will no longer serve the embattled Jewish pol, according to signs posted outside locations across the city.

Filner, recently slammed with a large number of sexual abuse allegations is now facing a major campaign to recall him from office.

The unlikely coalition arrayed against Filner now includes prominent female Jewish leaders such as Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz — and Hooters.

“We believe it is imperative for people to have standards,” reads Hooters’ sign, posted next to an ad featuring a blond woman, in the restaurants’ typical revealing waitress uniform, inviting men to drink Coors Light. “We believe women should be treated with respect.”

“Our Hooters girls in San Diego have spoken. Not a corporate gig, but we support our girls,” the company said in a message posted via Twitter, Reuters reported.

This may seem like a case of the fleshpot calling the kettle black: Hooters itself is not unfamiliar with sexual abuse lawsuits, as when, in 2004, dozens of women sued after being secretly filmed during interviews which involved changing into the chain’s skimpy waitress outfit.

Allegations against Filner, including a claim that he demanded a date in return for helping a Marine recovering from PTSD, have become so extreme that Hooters’ decision seems less than ironic.

In fact, Filner may find that Hooters’ doors aren’t the only ones closed to him from now on. The locks to the mayor’s office have been reportedly changed to give Filner a very unwelcome return from therapy.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.