THE WOLF-CHEEZME-CASTRO CONNECTION: A SHAKEDOWN?

By Juan Montoya
For a few months now local media observers have noticed a disturbing pattern emerging from the Food 4 Thought reports aired by broadcaster Ryan Wolf using questionable photos of alleged health violations in local, non-franchise restaurants.
For the most part, these are small, family owned enterprises and the reports rarely cross over the line to include national corporations.
Osyter Bar II, Mr. Taco, etc. have been featured as violators using photos allegedly taken by "kitchen cops" that depict either flies and in one case (not broadcast), even a spider.
These remind us of a well-known scam where a customer would take a fly from his home and when finished with the meal, would deposit the insect on the remnants of the food and storm out of the place without paying for it.
The sudden spate of "kitchen cops" operating under the aegis of News Central 4 makes us suspicious of the motives for the reports since they seem to make a circuitous route through Cheezmeh's Erasmo Castro (often via a neutral name) and then on to the small screen with Ryan's smug, self-serving commentary. It is not often that customers are allowed back into the kitchens or the food preparation tables of local restaurants. So if there's a fly in your soup, wouldn't the waiter and owner be called for it instead of it conveniently ending on the local news buttressed with a food inspector's report?
In other words, it's a bit too neat.
But apparently, even Wolf and his stations drew the line over the latest posting by Castro (via one Melissa Campos?) of what she alleges was s spider she found in a Sprite at a national restaurant chain.
Now, the legal representatives of a national restaurant chain would probably not take kindly to having someone come into their business and taking pictured of the offending arachnid allegedly residing on the lip of the drinking glass. But this didn't stop the Cheez from posting it on the worldwide web.
How fair is this to the small businesses that came under the watchful eye of these "kitchen cops.?" We know that the folks over at Mr. Taco and Oyster Bar II were none too pleased to become the objects of these pseudocops and their headmaster Wolf.
In fact, the tasteless posts published by Erasmo lately have deteriorated to the point that where he actually pictured a dog rolling over to illustratethe rollover accident of a car driven by a 74-year-old man who died on Military Highway Friday and injured two students. The complaints came in quite quickly.
"You actually posted a dog doing a rollover when someone lost their life?????/That's sick...," said a WhiteLatina Hino.
And teacher Alis Fruia-Zarate took Erasmo to task for posting mindless "vulgarities" about the students involved in the same accident. "I don't see anything that warrants mocking or name calling especially when it's children you's targeting," Zarate wrote.
"That makes some here no better than overgrown bullies."
The level of discourse has deteriorated to the point that nothing is scared to these cyberbullies, whether it's your business' integrity or the sanctity of young lives or the death of someone's relative. What is the point of all this?
Is the embarrassing of local small businesses a ploy to "sell" them protection on the cyberpages of this bunch? And is the hurling of vulgarities against two accident victims a snide attempt to get a rise out of his dwindling audience? Either way, the shot here has obviously missed the mark.