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Does Bob Evans Restaurants really prefer pedophiles to gun owners?


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Probably not but their internet policy seems to suggest it. On our way home from the July OGCA show a friend of mine and I stopped at the Bob Evans in Jeffersonville, OH. We had a less than pleasant experience which I detailed in a letter and an e-mail to them which I quote:

 

Bob Evans Restaurants

8111 Smith's Mill Road
New Albany, Ohio 43054

Sirs:

On July 14 I had occasion to eat at your restaurant in Jeffersonville, Ohio. While I was waiting for my food, I checked my e-mail and there was a message from a sporting goods firm with which I do business directing me to their web site for further information. However, when I attempted to access that web site I found it was blocked by your internet portal. The reason given was “weapons.”

I realize that you probably feel an obligation to protect your customers from content that they may find harmful and that there are people who have issues with firearms. However while you may choose to block whatever content you deem inappropriate, I would point out to you that if you block anything that anyone may find objectionable, you will ultimately have to block everything.

I was curious to see exactly how far this blocking of content which you find unacceptable extended. Looking for a controversial organization I did a search for “NORML” and was able to access the website for NORML, an organization which advocates for drug use. At this point I contacted the manager and pointed out the inconsistency of your internet censorship to him. He simply stated that this was corporate policy and not something that could be addressed at the restaurant level.

So having learned that Bob Evans Restaurants opposes accessing any information regarding the legal exercise of American citizens’ Second Amendment rights but has no problem with accessing information about drug use I returned to my seat and decided to further pursue the stupidity of your internet access policies. I tried to think of the most despicable possible organization and did a search for NAMBLA, an organization of perverted sexual predators which advocates for pedophilia. Amazingly, they had a web site and even more amazingly I was able to access it through your portal. I pointed this out to your manager and his response was again that it was corporate policy. I did not pursue my internet access experiment further because I quite simply could not imagine a more disgusting organization to which you would allow access.

So I have learned that Bob Evans Restaurants has no problem either with drug use or with the illegal and morally reprehensible sexual exploitation and abuse of children but that it objects to any web access involving firearms and their legal use. Do you have a problem with this? If you do not you should. I certainly do. I suggest you re-think your irrational and hypocritical internet access policy and to do so quickly. Consider that all internet content is accessed voluntarily so no one is exposed to content that they do not wish to see. Any censorship on your part does not shield your customers from anything; it merely imposes your obviously inconsistent and wholly inappropriate standards upon them.

I eagerly await your response.

That response was a form letter which indicated little other than that they had not read my complaint. I called them and was told that my letter to them was not even filed in their case file. The person to whom I talked requested that I e-mail him another copy which I did and upon reading it he promised to have his supervisor look into it. The next morning I received this response:

 

I apologize that you were disappointed with our original response. We have read your concern and your feedback was forwarded to our Restaurant Operations and IT Teams for their review.

Since I still wasn’t exactly sure what they meant by this other than probably wanting me to just shut up and go away, I sent another e-mail:

Does this mean that you are going to end this ridiculous censorship altogether since you will never, ever be able to screen out access to everything that you find objectionable. Please note that anyone sitting in your restaurants can currently access anything they want simply by switching off WiFi access and streaming it as data. Since unlimited data is increasingly part of most cell phone plans your efforts to become a cyber-nanny will ultimately prove futile.

Or are you going to plod on as you currently are and simply tighten your hold on what you consider to be legitimate information? If so be prepared for an onslaught of contacts from unhappy customers whose legitimate access was blocked by your robo-censor. Please realize that for the reasons outlined above your efforts will amount to nothing more than a public relations show and will eventually be doomed to failure.

Think before you act.

It should come as no surprise that they have not offered any further response and have done nothing to fix the situation. Here is my most recent e-mail

The situation has not improved. On August 30, I stopped at a different Bob Evans, this one in Copley/Fairlawn OH. Their WiFi blocked me from accessing GunTrader.com because it fell into the banned category of “weapons” but a quick check revealed that I could still access NAMBLA.org so I take this as proof that Bob Evans considers pedophiles to be more acceptable as customers than it does gun owners.

Would it not be simpler in the long run for them to simply clean up their WiFi practices? Again I await their response.

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Usually I find that while gunbroker, gun trader, etc are blocked, machinegunboards comes through just fine. I find that comical.

 

I appreciate the emails and please let us know what you find.

 

Ron

It's been a month since I last contacted them and they have not replied. I'm not going to waste any further time on them. FWIW Perkins does not censor their guests' internet access and their pancakes are IMHO tastier.

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