By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer
Published October 5, 2007
Southwest Airlines created a public uproar, then issued a public apology last month after crew members told a young San Diego woman that her miniskirt and tank top weren’t appropriate attire. The message to employees from Southwest president Colleen Barrett: We’re not the fashion police.
On Sunday, Joe Winiecki of Largo [FL] was sitting in the last row of a Southwest jet in Columbus, Ohio, ready to take off for Tampa when an airline supervisor instructed him to change his sexually suggestive T-shirt, turn it inside-out or get off the plane.
Winiecki argued that the airline was violating his right to free speech and objected to changing in front of other passengers. When the supervisor insisted, backed by a burly pilot and security officer, he changed into a different shirt rather than risk missing work the next day.
Winiecki’s shirt, purchased on a cruise in St. Thomas Virgin Islands, uses sexual double entendre to promote a fictional fishing tackle shop. The largest lettering reads “Master Baiter.” Winiecki said Southwest crew members on a flight from New Orleans last month told him “that’s a great shirt and laughed about it.”
| I thought Jack Hoff was funny too. First of all, the guy was sitting in the back row of the aircraft. Who’s going to see his shirt from there? Secondly, it’s sort of in the mind of the beholder anyway. |
| Found by MJ Hopper. |
The t-shirt might be in bad taste but I think this was a bit of an over reaction. People sure are easily offended now days. I blame the Bible thumpers.
I agree with the airlines. We need more of this! Kudos to Southwest
Uhm…yea…We need more of this. I agree with the monolithic corporation that wishes to impose their elitist bullshit on the poor working class. If you want to utilize their monopoly, you must conform to their biblical ways. Yea. Thats fucking smart. Why don’t we all dress in white shirts, tie, and black pants and call ourselves “yes” men…
Oh…
Better yet, lets worship a god that doesn’t exist, and then impose its superficial will on people who could give a fuck. Yea…That’s smart.
[Message edited – See Comment Guidelines. – ed.] Its people like you that have prayer in schools, No Child Left Behind, and will soon have China owning every industrial base this country was founded on.
Damn. Why did Marx have to be so right…? Not cool.
>>I blame the Bible thumpers.
I thump the Bible, and I think the shirt is pretty fucking funny. Southwest should burn in the same laaaaaaaake of fiiiiiiiiiiiire that Apple will burn in for bricking the iPhone.
Guess that means no Dicken Cider shirts either eh?
From Deep in Cider Vally .. Comes in Jugs, boxes, and cans..
Nothing wrong with the T-shirt, nothing blatant about it. If you are offended by it then you have a dirty little mind.
I never get what’s wrong with a little double entendre. The people who know what it means get a laugh and everybody else can’t be offended because they don’t get it.
I agree Higghawker. By the way your clothes offend me and I demand something be done about it.
They are a corporation and may run their airline as they see fit.
I blame Dirty minds…
Why not ask him HOW he Baits his hooks…
He must have taken a class, to get such a prestigious Award..
@Higghawker
Seems like you are the Master Baiter, Corporations don’t have the right to discriminate against people because of the clothes they wear, to me this is akin to telling a Muslim woman to take off her Burka or a Christian man to remove a cross because they think it is inappropriate
The t-shirt was a give-away to his persona: a low educated, rough individual with poor taste. People could avoid talking with him from the getgo instead of chatting it up and finding out 10 minutes later that you wasted your time.
“Winiecki argued that the airline was violating his right to free speech”.
The constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
So Congress can’t pass any laws against free speech. But Southwest Airlines can do whatever the hell it likes. But it must deal with the consequences of lost business if it’s customer’s don’t like it.
>>But it must deal with the consequences of lost business if
>>it’s customer’s don’t like it.
I was a customer, and I don’t like it.
HEADS UP, SOUTHWEST. I’ll be taking Delta (or another airline) in the future. I’d take a double-layover before flying a fascist airline like that.
That’s it, Chuck.
I disagree with their action, too – but it’s their friggin’ aeroplane.
The way freedom in America is supposed to work is, they can do what they did, but should sufficient numbers of other customers vote with their dollars, they will suffer appropriately.
You wanna ride on my plane, I don’t like your shirt, or your attitude, or your face – I ain’t gonna fly ya noplace. But I should expect that people who don’t appreciate my actions will take their business elsewhere, and if they do, I’d have no one to blame but myself.
So it’s a poor practice, from a business viewpoint – but it is their right…
#14 – Yeah, you really think anyone believes that you will change airlines over this issue. It will be forgotten in a week.
Similar to the daffy girl from MIT who brought the fake bomb with silly putty into Logan Airport.
It’s just like the “Don’t taze me, bro” kid. He set it up and got his 15 minutes of fame.
#16,
Sheeet, you’re still here.
#13, and similar others,
. But Southwest Airlines can do whatever the hell it likes.
Uuhh, no they can’t. They sold the ticket. That makes for a contract. When the guy boarded he was wearing the shirt. He was seen by several Southwest employees, apparently none whom objected to his shirt.
Unless Southwest prominently displays a notice that it will discriminate against those wearing objectionable clothing then they are wrong and subject to to paying for the guy’s injuries. They can not later provide some undefined part of the contract the ticket purchaser would have no way of knowing about beforehand.
I would go along with Southwest if the shirt were blatantly offensive/obscene. But as it stands, you have to make it obscene in your own mind.
And if some guy is really good at baiting a hook, there’s no reason not to call him a master baiter.
And I’ll bet there’s really a Jack Hoff somewhere on the planet. There’s a Hugh G. Rection that posts on this site. 🙂
I suspect the only reason the airline was involved was because someone complained. Probably a parent who didn’t want their kid to see it.
Regarding free speech, that argument is a joke in this context. Free speech is about ideas. This jerk was about offending people.
Uhm…yea…We need more of this. More idiots running around espousing autoerotic ideas and imposing their hairy palmed bullshit on anyone with above a 4th grade education. If you want to avoid the lunacy you’re labelled the problem. Yea. Thats smart. Why don’t we all dress in plaid pants with white shirts and blue aprons, and call ourselves “stock” boys…
Oh…
Better yet, lets worship an idea that offends anyone with a thinking mind and then impose its superficial idiocy on people who could give a crap. Yea…That’s smart.
Its people like you that have put messages on restroom walls in schools, and will soon have China owning every idea this country was founded on.
Damn. Why did Micky Mouse have to be so right…? Not cool.
19. Actually I do have a customer named Jack Imhoff, true story. Sorry Jack if by chance you see this post.
Why would they throw you off a plane for wearing a smart-alec shirt?
Simple.
Trying to save face because they let the shoe bomber through.
just more proof to me that the sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant!
Another reason not to fly…..
HighHorse –
You think Southwest is “elitist”? That’s hilarious.
Say Kai Lee –
The Shoe-na Bomber was on an American Airlines flight, not Southwest.
HEADS UP, SOUTHWEST. I’ll be taking Delta (or another airline) in the future. I’d take a double-layover before flying a fascist airline like that.
Have fun being stranded in Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati or Memphis for hours if not days on end.
The shirt has nothing to do with being a master.
The shirt has nothing to do with being a baiter.
The shirt has everything to do with masturbation.
That makes it sexual assault when such “free speech” is directed at my children. Not to mention adults.
You’ll just have to peddle your anarchy somewhere else.
RBG
>>Have fun being stranded in Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati
>>or Memphis for hours if not days on end.
I have every bit as much a chance of being stranded in one of those cities if I take Southwest.
The difference is that I’ll be stranded by a company that’s not so fucked in the head that they boot people from their planes for being “too sexy” or “wearing the wrong shirt”.
Got it? I hope Southwest gets it. This was a PR nightmare gone wrong. Stupid fucks.
I suppose they wouldn’t let you fly with this shirt: http://tinyurl.com/2c9cux or any of the other sold there either.
You have to remember the political correctness is the opposite of good humor.
26.
wow………………….
Sometimes I sit around and wonder how on earth this country got so bassackwards,….and then I come here and it all makes sense. 😀
I have a shirt from a Film Festival I participated in that says “Meet Me In My Trailer” An obvious innuendo for some “behind the scenes” lovin.
So if I wear that on a plane, does that mean I am soliciting sex to every female that sees it?
I have another shirt that has a picture of the “BFG” from the videogame DOOM (Short for “BioForceGun”, or more affectionately “Big Fucking Gun”) If I wear that in public, does that make me an advocate for Interplanetary/interdimentional gun violence?
Masturbator
Meet me in my trailer
BFG
I’ll let you figure the rest.
RBG
I’m sick of hearing, “I don’t want my children to see that.” Children know all the four letter words nowadays. Most of them know more now then we did when we were in college. You hear the word masturbation all the time on TV. Masturbate is NOT a “dirty word.”