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"Dirty Joanne" joins discrimination probe
Published in the Asbury Park Press 08/19/05 BY CAROL GORGA WILLIAMS COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU LOCH ARBOUR — An Asbury Park woman is prepared to cooperate in a state inquiry to determine whether Parkhill's Waterfront Grill committed discrimination when it labeled customers on bills and credit card receipts. Joanne Fordyce, 34, said she has a bill from July 15, 2004, in which she was labeled "Dirty Joanne" by a server named "Trish." She said she found the receipt in mid-August 2004 when she changed purses. She and a group of friends went to the Main Street restaurant and asked General Manager Malia Wells for an explanation. Wells referred them to owner John Parkhill whom Fordyce said "blew them off." Parkhill died in January, and his brother, Michael, took over. Michael Parkhill could not be reached for comment. On Thursday, after the state Attorney General's Division of Civil Rights said it was conducting an inquiry into another incident from July 2005 in which Elliott Stein, 23, of Deal and Brooklyn, was labeled, along with his girlfriend, Jennifer Cassin, as a "Jew Couple," Fordyce said she contacted the state. "I'm going to be doing an affidavit for them, to help in their investigation," Fordyce said. Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, said its civil rights division has no other complaints about Parkhill's on file and that Stein has not filed a formal complaint. He said the agency was embarked on "fact-finding" regarding the incident to determine whether discrimination laws were violated. Wells said Wednesday that the "Jew Couple" label was a result of "poor judgment" on the part of a server who no longer works there. Stephen Reid, a restaurant spokesman, said it had been the servers' practice to use descriptions of diners to identify them on checks, instead of table numbers, as many establishments do. He said the restaurant now uses a table-numbering system. "It takes the opportunity for mischief away from the servers," said Reid, who added that Fordyce was a problem customer who had been banned from the restaurant for more than a year. Fordyce denied she had any problems at Parkhill's until the labeling issue surfaced. The Associated Press contributed to this story. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.13/78 - Release Date: 8/19/2005
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- [AsburyPark] "Dirty Joanne" at Parkhill's lekretzu
