This news was making the rounds today, Dallas-based food chain to accept Mexican pesos
Starting Monday, patrons of the Dallas-based Pizza Patrón chain, which caters heavily to Latinos, will be able to purchase American pizzas with Mexican pesos.
They mean, it caters heavily to Mexicans.
“We know they come back [from Mexico] and have pesos left over. We want to be a convenient place for them to spend their pesos.”
Spend their pesos, indeed: for starters,
Under the program – which is set to end in late February but may be extended – the chain’s 59 stores will take peso bills only, not coins.
At an exchange rate of 10.94 pesos per dollar, that’s a 0.6% gain to start with – I do understand that taking coin would be cumbersome and can be a problem. But then there’s the exchange rate:
the company set its exchange rate at 12 pesos per dollar for the duration of the program.
Ah, Shoot! posts,
Pizza Chain Takes Pesos, Stiffs Minorities
Catering to their customers, but who are their customers who might have pesos in hand? Not likely returning visitors, but illegal aliens.
Poor illegal aliens; the people who don’t want to be seen exchanging currency anywhere where they might be asked for ID.
‘We know the purity of our intention, and we’re willing to take the heat when there is heat.'” What purity? Knowingly operating a business that caters to those who may be in the country illegally and allowing the use of foreign currency? Hardly pure at all, and why? Because the company is overcharging the buyers! The current exchange rate is under $11/peso and our heroes are charging $12/peso. They claim that it’s to cover the cost of converting the funds.
Too bad for Pizza Patron, but a little internet and phone searching discovers that, according to a Jane (name changed to protect source) at Wells Fargo Foreign Exchange, Wells Fargo account holders are charged nothing to process a forex transaction. Oooops! Non account holders are charged $5 per transaction for any amount. Oooops again! Now Pizza Patron may not be a Wells Fargo customer, but the charge is minuscule compared to the amounts they must bring in. So it seems our little friends at PP are overstating the cost to themselves of their heroic service to the little guy with a handful of pesos. As usual with those who purport to serve the interests of the “minority communities”, we see their actions seemingly aren’t quite filled with the “the purity of our intention” as they piously claim.
Look, if Pizza Patron wants to make money off the disadvantaged, that’s their problem. Just don’t expect me to believe on any purity of intention.
