Press: Pesos-for-pizzas chain defiant despite outrage - HC

Houston Chronicle: "Pesos for pizzas. It seemed innocent enough. But after a Texas pizza chain this week began accepting Mexican pesos in exchange for piping hot pies, the company was flooded with thousands of e-mails.

'What you are doing is unpatriotic. THIS IS AMERICA NOT MEXICO!' one message read. 'Get the hell out of this country!!!!' said another. 'This is America where the currency is the U.S. Dollar. If you want to accept the peso, go to Mexico!'

But for Elizabeth Perez, who on Friday was awaiting her pizza order at a Pizza Patron restaurant on Airline Drive in Houston, it just makes good business sense. Why not, she said, spend leftover pesos in the United States instead of waiting until she returned to Mexico?"

(If you define America by parochialism and bigotry then I understand these pseudopatriotic ingrates. But if you define America by brotherhood, civility, tolerance, and innovation -- not to mention free-market capitalism -- then it makes perfect sense to accept any currency and to provide any customer service that a business chooses to do, esp. when it proves wildly successful and makes customers happy -- even if it peeves hatemongering bigots.)