I can't abide intolerance

Rest in peace, Joey Vento, you jingoistic, cheeseskeak-slinging xenophobe.

I should back up a bit. I lived in Philadelphia, specifically South Philly, more specifically a few doors in from the corner of Passyunk and Ellsworth Avenues, within rock-throwing distance of Geno's Steaks, the enterprise of Joey Vento, part-time employer of Joey Merino, and avid supporter of slain police officer David Faulkner. Geno's tries as hard as it can to outshine nearby Pat's Steaks, which has also been in business since the late 1960s. The two joints have been locked in competition for daytime talk show time, campaign trail photo ops, and column inches for culinary travel stories since. They are open 24-7, 365, after every fucking football game and New Year's Eve and Mummer's Day Parade and I lived within half a block of the place for almost seven years.

And there is really only one thing you need to know about Geno's, if you've never been there before.

There is no bathroom for customers.

This also goes for the much less bedazzled Pat's, but let me reiterate: no bathrooms. For a disgusting, bloated, greasy steak sandwich restaurant that is open 24-7 and lives to cater to the fist-pumping Jersey Shore set and other barflies that go through life making bad decisions like, "Hey, it's 3am, let's go to Geno's!"

One more time: No bathrooms. And the customers are drunk and of dubious character.

Again, for those who haven't been there, Geno's is basically an entire building on a triangular street. There are other tenants in the place, including one of the best dive bars ever, Ray's Happy Birthday Bar. This bar has been open since the late 1930s and it opens early: 7am. It has a small bathroom for each gender (and it used to have separate entrances for each gender, too). And this bar used to make a killing selling 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor to people, some of whom would buy a few 40s at closing time, hunker down for the night, and then go back in at 7am.

Ray's Happy Birthday bar stopped selling 40s when the neighborhood association I was a member of asked them to stop. Because Ray's Happy Birthday Bar cared enough about the neighbor's concerns - like drunks sleeping on our doorsteps and using them for toilets. Stuff like that.

There's a big park across the street from Pat's and Geno's, with a baseball diamond, basketball courts, and a playground. I voted in the rec center. And there are bathrooms there. But the park has to be locked up at night, even though Geno's can be seen from space and there are ten thousand people around eating gross dripping sandwiches, so there are no bathrooms for all the Geno's customers.

Guess who never listened to a single neighborhood concern, nor invested a single dollar into the neighborhood, or into BATHROOMS FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS?

Joey Vento.

Bathrooms are, I thought, required for restaurants. They are a great way for a restaurant to express its style, or serve its customer. They are fucking required for modern living. But not at Geno's! And somehow everyone just...pretends like the customers aren't pissing all over the neighborhood? It is literally looking the other way - I know I did, for years, because it was disgusting. And yet I bought a house in South Philly, in the glare of what I came to call Cheesesteak Ground Zero, because I thought the character of the neighborhood wouldn't change that much. But I was really wrong.

I bought my house on Passyunk Ave in 2000. When the Census info came out, a change was really visible. The Mexican population in Philly shot up, and it was very evident in my neighborhood. The Italian Market, a huge open-air market with cheese shops, butchers, produce, pasta, and amazing restaurants, started to get Mexican groceries and taquerias. Since Philly had a real dearth of authentic Mexican food, this was an amazing change. I loved it. One real perk for me was that many stands and shops in the Italian Market would usually close before 6pm - sometimes just after 3pm some days. Real old school shit. But the new grocery stores would stay open til 8pm or sometimes even later. Usually 9th Street would be mostly dark with shuttered storefronts, but the new tenants kept it bright and cheerful.

Guess who didn't like it?

Joey Vento. Dude hated the new neighbors so much he started the campaign pictured above, or at least it happened sequentially. See the "this is america, order in english" stuff? Or the "I want my country back" stuff? Geno's sold bumper stickers with those slogans, one at a time, to other hateful people.

Besides the campaign, Vento went on the attack and accused our new neighbors of being predators.

I saw Mexican families walking their kids to school in the morning, and keeping their well-lit, clean stores open late.

It was well-documented that Joey Vento gave money to charities he cared about - local police, and of course the Mummers parade. But he never cared enough about the neighborhood his restaurant was housed in for over forty years to think about putting in bathrooms.

I saw Joey Vento drive home to New Jersey after his shift every few days in his enormous, garish, "sorry about your dick" Hummer.

Joey Vento died of a massive heart attack on August 24. And I am sorry for the loss, everyone that loved him.

He and I have something in common.

We are both mad as hell. Just not at the same thing.