We have previously discussed the cafe owner who was ordered to remove the exhaust fan, here. The fan was ordered removed because it blew bacon odors that were offensive to Muslims.
Seems like another story of accommodation, but …
From the website of the Central Stockport Area Committee we find a list of 14 issues to be discussed. Number 4 is:
A retrospective Planning application (DC044716) for the retention of extraction vent to front of shop at 159 Adswood Road, Cale Green – recommendation grant.
Kind of boring, but a neighbor, Graham Webb-Lee, stated that the exhaust fan was only 12 inches from his front door and complained that the smell is getting in his clothes. He stated his daughter has an eating disorder. He also stated that his Muslim friends don’t want to come over because of the smell.
Guess which complaint made it to the headline in the Daily Mail article?
H/T Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion
-David Drumm (Nal)
No smell worse that the smell of food in your clothing.
“Presumably there is a question of which came first, the neighbor or the vent. Usually whatever came first will predominate.”
This shouldn’t be an issue. If the smell is a public nuisance something will have to be done.
Presumably there is a question of which came first, the neighbor or the vent.
Usually whatever came first will predominate.
But Yeah, the use of the story to try to make a political statement is pretty shoddy.
“Today mother-of-seven Mrs Akciecek said she plans to appeal against the decision.” (from the Daily Mail article)
This case could give new meaning to the phrase “exhaustive appeals.”
I’m not a fan of fried food, myself, because believe it or not I do find the cooking smell unpleasant. Frying bacon is one of the worst for that, though black pudding with its smell of singeing blood is in a class of its own. This has nothing to do with religion.
I’m confused. If the fan is 12 inches from his front door, how does he get in and out of his house? Is he only 11 1/2 inches thick? If so, sounds like he has more problems than this fan.
If that grease ever catches fire, he’ll have an even bigger problem. I was on the spot when a local baker ran out of his shop yelling that his bakery was on fire. And watched as a fellow came flying out of an upstairs apartment in his skivies. The bakery and 2 adjacent buildings, including a yard goods store, burned to the ground. We didn’t even have time to help the yard goods store get their merchandise out. No one hurt or killed, luckily.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that it is physiologically impossible for a human being in good health to find the odor of cooking bacon offensive.
Cooking bacon smells delicious to us because up to one half of our genome is directly involved in the hunting, killing, and culinary preparation of the smoky swinetastic goodness.
Muslims don’t find the odor offensive because it smells bad – they are offended because it smells good – and they can’t have any.
I say tough trotters. We don’t need to, nor should we, necessarily respect the religious sensibilities of the devout, we need only respect their Constitutional right to practice their religion, and even that freedom has its time and place restrictions, and must respect secular criminal law.
Accommodation of these Muslims, who don’t want to have to smell the cooking preparations of the free peoples around them, is an example of a policy that leads to madness. Suppose Hindus decided to object to public restaurants serving beef?
The cow is a sacred symbol for them, you know, and they no doubt find the odor and even the concept of eating cows offensive. Should we not accommodate their religious sensibilities? Outlaw beef consumption? Perhaps have beef-free zones? Maybe we should demand that all restaurants be required to have separate food preparation areas to accommodate kosher and halal systems? God forbid if a religionist is forced to contemplate something as unsettling to his sensibilities as an unclean kitchen or the small of cooking bacon.
Of course, the smell of bacon is restricted to a small section of sidewalk. Much worse is the ubiquitous blaspheming of Allah and Yahweh and Jesus Christ on every city street! Now that is seven times seven times seven times more religiously offensive than the smell of bacon, surely we should put a stop to that as well.
If the allegation is correct that the fan is only 12 inches from the neighbors front door is correct then I can easily understand the neighbors concern. I’m one for the seniority system and common courtesy though. If the eatery put in it’s fan with existing neighbors then it should have had to locate it so as not to burden its neighbors.
Yep, I told you the fumes from food preparation are serious crap for neighbors.
The Daily Mail, by the way, is a tabloid notorious for cooking up nonsense that panders to the religious and cultural prejudices of its readers. Fox News Channel it’s not, but there are some similarities.
From the Wikipedia article on that newspaper:
‘On October 9, 2009 the Mail ran the headline “Hunger striker’s £7m Big Mac: Tamil who cost London a fortune in policing was sneaking in fast-food”. The article stated that “Scotland Yard surveillance teams using specialist monitoring equipment had watched in disbelief” as Parameswaran Subramaniyan; a Tamil hunger striker protesting outside the Houses of Parliament covertly broke his fast by secretly eating McDonald’s burgers. When a request for an apology and retraction of this story was refused, Mr Subramanyam issued proceedings against the paper. In court, the newspaper’s claim was shown to be entirely false, the Met superintendent in charge of the policing operation confirmed there had been no police surveillance team using the “specialist monitoring equipment”. As a result, on 29 July 2010, Mr Subramanyam is understood to have accepted damages of £47,500 from the Daily Mail. The newspaper also paid his legal costs, withdrew the allegations and apologised “sincerely and unreservedly” for the distress that had been caused.’