Racist City Planners Conspire to Close Downtown Charleston Hot Dog Joint

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

For years the Middle East Mart has been providing those who frequent Slack Plaza and the KRT Transit Mall with the necessities of life: Cigarettes, Pepsi and Hummus. When they added hot dogs to their menu several years ago the hordes of people that this addition brought to the area began to cause some problems for City leaders. Two years ago the mayor installed "loafer rails" - strips of steel spikes - on top of the planter seatwalls that were meant to discourage the hard working Slack Plaza regulars from sitting down and eating their lunch. Then last summer he had the trees in the plaza cut down to eliminate shady areas where people could sip their sodas in the heat of summer. While these tactics have no doubt had a negative effect on the hot dog sales at Middle East Mart, WVHotDogs.com has remained silent while this administration has systematically persecuted the only minority owned Hot Dog Joint in the downtown area. Recent events, however, have made it impossible for us to remain silent any longer.  

This week a group of "experts" from a university in North Central West Virginia (where, as we all know, many people have a sick aversion to cole slaw on hot dogs) came to Charleston to hold a "community meeting" where a "plan" for "improvement" of Slack Plaza was "developed." Funny, but only two days after this meeting was held, a plan was released whose major component is the removal of Middle East Mart from the plaza. No other business would be affected by this proposal; only the one that is owned by people from the Middle East was targeted. Has there ever been a more obvious case of racial profiling? Can we, the hot dog loving citizens of West Virginia, stand idly by while a Capital City HDJ is run out of town by a racist administration?

Call To Action

Here's what I propose: Today, anyone who works or is visiting in Downtown Charleston needs to go to Middle East Mart and buy a hot dog! Whether you opt for one of their regular hot dogs with grape leaf slaw or one of the more exotic ones (I recommend the all-lamb weenie with baba ganoush on a pita), join us in standing up for the rights of our Muslim brothers, won't you?

Make sure you do it today. Tomorrow the opportunity will be lost. All great revolutions begin on a significant date: Communism has its May Day; perhaps April 1 will henceforth be as well known.

I have a dream today.