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Hooters Plan is Defended, Criticized




FLORISSANT

Hooters Plan is Defended, Criticized
'Harmful Messages,' Traffic Risk
Balanced Against Economic Gain
By Tanya Parker, Post-Dispatch Special Correspondent
The Florissant City Council listened Monday night to impassioned arguments on both sides of a proposal for Hooters, a restaurant planned in the Florissant Oaks Shopping Center at Lindbergh Boulevard and Patterson Road.

Opponents in the standing-room-only crowd at the council meeting said that waitresses at Hooters wore scanty clothing and were hired because of their appearance.

Harold Hendrick, a talk-show host on KSIV Radio, represented the Florissant Citizen League at the meeting and urged the council to oppose discrimination against women "who have the wrong dimensions and the wrong appearance."

Elizabeth Perkins, a resident of Florissant, said that Hooters sent harmful "messages to our society about women. Other people said they were worried about customers of Hooters who would drink there, then drive on Patterson Road, which also is used by pedestrians. Some said
that Hooters would detract from the standards of the Florissant business district.

Residents in favor of Hooters said the restaurant would be a boost to the business district and an economic boost for Florissant. They say the shopping center has many vacant buildings and would be helped by the restaurant.

Anene Tressler-Hauschultz, executive director for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, said Hooters was a business that "gives back to the community." She said Hooters had helped diabetes research.

Hooters applied for a permit for the restaurant in July of this year, and the permit was recommended by the Planning and Zoning Committee in August. The committee said it
recommended the permit after evaluating the effect that it would have on the value of adjacent property and on the residents and businesses of Florissant.


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