Nasir and Matt close out the week by talking about the woman that was refused a haircut at a barbershop because itwas described as a men's only business.

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NASIR: Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to that business news. My name is Nasir Pasha.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub, and sometimes we cover haircuts as well.

NASIR: That was a great lead-in to our story which is our barber’s episode, actually – our annual barber gratitude episode of the year. September is haircut month, I believe.

MATT: I don’t know if you did this on purpose.

NASIR: First of all, I do everything on purpose, unless I do it on accident and it’s not good.

MATT: So, the term “barber,” I’ve heard people say that A”barber” is only for people that cut men’s hair. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not.

NASIR: I think that’s the implication.

MATT: Okay.

NASIR: When someone says “barber” or “barber shop,” they’re referring to a male – not necessarily a male haircutter but a haircutter for men.

MATT: See, I never know because you’ll hear “hair cutter” or “hair stylist.” I never know what to say so I just say “the girl that cuts my hair.” It always sounds awkward, but that’s the only way I know how to describe it.

NASIR: I always say “the person that cuts my hair” because who knows if it’s a man or a woman?

MATT: You don’t see gender or you’re better than I am.

NASIR: What I say is just “the animate object that cuts my hair, just in case it’s a robot.”

MATT: Yeah, anyone that listened to our last episode, you went into, after your Bank of America experience, you went to a virtual haircutting spot where it was just a person on a camera and they robot-cut your hair.

NASIR: Or they directed me how to cut my own hair.

MATT: That’s be impressive.

So, I didn’t even look to where this was located. Oh, Pennsylvania.

NASIR: Of course. It’s in the title but okay.

MATT: Yeah, I didn’t look at the title.

We have this self-described “high-end gentleman’s barbershop” – at least it’s how it’s described on its website – and, basically, long story short, they had a woman who came into the barbershop to get a haircut, specifically a fade, and she was turned away because they said that – and the funny part is the person that turned her away was a woman – they only cut exclusively men’s haircuts. It was funny because it was a woman who turned this woman away but, like they said, “we are a gentleman’s barbershop. We only cut men’s hair and you will not be able to get your hair cut here.” It’s kind of a slap on the wrist, a $750 fine which I guess adds up for haircuts, but I think they did pretty well with that. I mean, if that’s what the fine is, I think they can handle that.

NASIR: Yeah, of course, they can handle it. Well, actually, I had a barber tell me, it’s like, you know, he happened to be male and obviously trained. Actually, no, she was female. Now that I remember who told me this, she was saying that a lot of stylists are not trained to cut men’s hair. I mean, apparently, there’s a better market or more money in styling women’s hair than men’s, but a lot of times, when they go to training and whatever school they go to – barber school or what-have-you – they spend very little time on learning how to cut men’s hair and I think, for our purposes, I think, you know, physically, the heads are the same but, just from a perspective of the types of haircuts that men get versus women, I think that’s what we’re talking about here.

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: It goes to this concept of why this particular woman went to this gentlemen’s barbershop because she wanted to get a fade which was more traditionally for a men’s style haircut so it kind of fits that kind of concept that you’re going to the barber that is trained in that kind of type of haircut.

MATT: Yeah. I mean, not to generalize or do any sort of stereotyping but, typically, men’s haircuts are shorter.

NASIR: That’s so sexist.

Nasir and Matt discuss the rise of telecommuting in the workforce and relay some pros and cons for both employees and employers.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. My name is Nasir Pasha, where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. Welcome to our midnight episode.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. That was an old school introduction by you.

NASIR: Well, yeah, I mean, I feel like I’m going back in time with how late we’re recording this.

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: I’m actually half-asleep right now.

MATT: Which half?

NASIR: Well, my legs are in my bed in pajamas right now and I’m just yawning like crazy.

MATT: That would be pretty sad if you were actually recording a podcast like that.

NASIR: Practically. I went home, had dinner, changed, and then came back to the office in shorts and a t-shirt. Well, that’s what I do for you guys, just to produce quality episodes.

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: Today, we’re talking about telecommuting, telecommuting… what are we talking about? I’m so off, I’m sorry.

MATT: You said it twice – telecommuting.

NASIR: Yeah, telecommuting. Yeah, exactly. There is a trend. Let’s face it, this has been going on for a while of moving your workforce to a telecommuting workforce or select employees that may request it in doing so and the legal implications of that and so forth.

MATT: Yeah, you did mention it’s a trend. I saw some numbers somewhere which dated a couple years back – obviously the increase. Obviously, when technology gets better and people have different tastes with things, I mean, it’s just bound to happen. I’m sure it’s like all things – employers, it’s just something they need to get used to and, once they get used to it, then yeah. If it makes sense for the employees they’re asking to telecommute, then great.

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: Or it could be great. I mean, from the employer perspective, they might think, “Oh, this is great. I free up more space in the office. It’s one less thing to worry about.” But it actually could be quite the opposite and it could actually end up being more work for the employer having an employee work from home.

NASIR: Oh, yeah, no doubt. Obviously, the reason there is a trend is because of technology. I mean, that’s the driving force behind it and, sometimes, like you said, it can be an advantage but I think a lot of times, employers forget that these telecommuters are still employees so the rules of creating a safe work environment and issues with meal periods, breaks, overtime still apply. But, you know, speaking of technology, and this kind of relates to what we’re talking about, you know, what is actually telecommuting? Because, usually, we think telecommuting is working from home but I went to Bank of America today and so I walk in, I’m trying to find where the actual tellers are and I can’t find them. There’s a kiosk in the center of the room and it’s this woman and she’s, like, welcoming and I’m, like, trying to figure out where to go and I’m like, “This isn’t a normal Bank of America, is it?” and she’s like, “No, it’s not,” and she kind of directs me to this big computer system that’s waist-high and I look down and it’s a screen with someone staring at me with this Bank of America background logo and apparently it’s a real person and she’s probably basically telecommuting from wherever she’s filming from and has a camera on me and is basically performing as a bank teller. It was a very surreal, weird experience. I wanted to bring my wife just to come and look at this amazing branch of Bank of America. I thought it was neat. I don’t know.

MATT: Knowing your wife, I’m sure she wouldn’t have a blast getting dragged to a bank to check out a person on video.

NASIR: I literally got on my phone. I didn’t do it and she probably is glad I didn’t. I got on my phone to text her about it but don’t text and drive.

MATT: You didn’t mention that the Bank of America was on space or somewhere in the future,

The guys go with deuces wild in an episode discussing whySoulCycle is being accused of "robbing customers" by selling certificates that are used to purchase classes.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. My name is Nasir Pasha.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub.

NASIR: And welcome to our Wednesday episode, my second favorite next to Monday’s episode.

MATT: Deuces wild today – 222.

NASIR: Wow! 222nd episode, that’s amazing.

MATT: I wonder if we can make this episode 2:22 or 22:22.

NASIR: Or can we somehow come up with an excuse to make it another clip show, the 222.

MATT: Probably, it makes the most sense.

NASIR: Probably. Let’s do 22:02 or 22.2 minutes, that is difficult.

MATT: Yeah. Still, even if we tried, it probably wouldn’t work out, but we’ll see what happens after we’re done recording and see where it’s at.

We’re going to talk about this company, SoulCycle. I guess it’s in the process of an IPO or registering, right?

NASIR: Yeah, it’s registered. It hasn’t come out yet. Have you heard of this or no?

MATT: You know, I have because it’s pretty popular in LA.

NASIR: I’ve heard of the cycling classes and stuff like that but I’ve never heard of SoulCycle specifically.

MATT: I’ve heard of a couple companies or a couple of businesses, yeah, that are this and it was either this one or something similar to it. It was probably this one if it’s this popular and, you know, about to go public.

There was the class action lawsuit that was filed pretty recently, I believe – August 25th.

NASIR: Yeah, August 25th.

MATT: At least by when we’re recording this. This class action lawsuit that was filed and they took it a little bit vicious basically saying that the company robs customers by requiring them to buy certificates for classes with unreasonably short expiration periods. One example in particular, this customer in California paid $30.00 for a future class which probably is a rip-off but that’s fine. $30.00 for a cycling class that she basically couldn’t end up using because, like she was saying, the expiration time was unreasonably short and I think they give some more details.

NASIR: I think, for one class, it’s like 30 days or something to that effect.

MATT: Single classes expire within 30 days – that’s not unreasonably short by any means, but anyways. A series of five classes expires within 45 days – that’s what? Every nine days. Still, plenty of time to use that. That’s kind of what they’re hanging their hat on and I guess the bigger thing is a couple of other aspects of it, too. One, they’re saying it violates the Credit Card Accountability and Disclosures Act. None of the packages available are longer than a year. They were making the argument that these certificates which are the words of SoulCycle – not even the customer’s – these certificates are gift certificates which we’ve discussed before are not allowed to have expiration dates shorter than five years under the law.

NASIR: And, by the way, it’s funny that this came out because, literally two weeks ago, I was almost about to go with my wife to one of these things but, from what I know, you have to reserve ahead of time and that’s kind of one of the allegations I believe too was that, even if it’s 30 days in theory, what if there’s no space available because it’s so busy and so forth, or it’s so hard for you to plan ahead of time and so reserving last minute may not work for you, and then on top of that you have this possible statutory violation for the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility Act which has specific requirements and how gift certificates work. Of course, the question is: “Is this a gift certificate?” But pretty much it meets the definition. I mean, they can call it whatever they want – a voucher or a ticket or what-have-you – but it seems to fit that definition where you’re buying something in the future. I mean,

The guys discuss the lawsuit filed by PhantomAlert against Waze concerning accusations of data scraping a database.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. My name is Nasir Pasha.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub.

NASIR: And here we are today on another episode. Today’s Monday – my favorite episode day, second to Wednesday.

MATT: In the top two.

NASIR: Yeah, top two of the week.

MATT: Well, that’s good. You’re the one that kind of discovered this.

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: Were you familiar with it beforehand?

NASIR: Actually, it’s funny enough, how I found out about this, I happened to look at Google Maps and I was navigating somewhere and it said that there was a traffic incident reported by Waze and Waze is kind of like a navigating app but it’s really cool on road trips because what it’ll do is it’ll tell you if there is an accident in front of you or if there is a cop, a speed trap, and how it works is that you can actually report – like, if you see a police officer, you can say, “Okay, I just saw a police officer,” and hit a button and then it’s basically reporting it to the app and now everyone else sees it and so now there’s this kind of social aspect to reporting the traffic and different incidences or even attractions and so forth. And so, their data became so valuable because of the users that Google Maps actually acquired them for their data, of course, to integrate within Google Maps. Those of you who use Google Maps pretty regularly, you’ve already noticed in the past six months how much more information you have as far as traffic data. I remember in San Diego, it used to show those red, yellow, and green lines for traffic data only on highways because that’s the only way it had sensors. If you were in another city that wasn’t as advanced, you would have no traffic data whatsoever. But, now, you have traffic data on side streets and pretty much every street that has enough people based upon this kind of reporting data from Waze and other sources as well.

MATT: I think that’s pretty common. At least I’m one of the few people that uses – or at least I feel like I am – that have an iPhone and use the actual Maps app that comes on there. I mean, people complain about it all the time. I never have problems with it. It works just fine for me.

NASIR: I think it had problems in the beginning but that’s it, you know, because I think when Apple decided to, if you recall, I think at one point they said, “Okay, we’re going to not list Google Maps on the store at all,” and they had some backlash with that so I think it was more of a PR thing that anything else.

MATT: Yeah, and I guess Waze, if you’re stuck in a traffic jam, you let people know so, maybe down the road, when you’re trying to decide where to go, someone might do the same for you.

NASIR: Well, what’s neat about it is, if you have the program running – I think this is how it works – it’ll actually record how fast you’re going and things like that so it can actually record average traffic pace.

MATT: Yeah, that’s what I was trying to figure out. Is that what all these little weird creatures are that look like Kirby?

NASIR: Yeah, Kirby, from Nintendo, I believe.

MATT: Is that what these things are?

NASIR: Uh, I guess. They’re basically little dialogue bubbles with smiley faces on it, if you can picture that, if you’ve never seen them before.

MATT: Yeah, but some of them are Kirbys and then there’s like a dog. Anyways…

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: There’s Waze and there’s another site called Phantom Alert which looks to be a similar thing. one of the problems I have with them is it’s like, “Oh, DUI checkpoint.” It’s like, “Well, if someone should get a DUI, we don’t need to be telling people.

NASIR: Yeah, speeding is one thing, but DUI traps are a different thing, that’s true.

MATT: You’re causing more harm than you are doing good by letting people avoid DUI checkpoints. Anyway,

Nasir and Matt talk about the difference between a delivery fee and a tip and why a New York Pizza Hut may owe its drivers some money. They also discuss how the minimum wage increase has affected tipping.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to that business news. My name is Nasir Pasha.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub.

NASIR: Welcome to our annual pizza episode which we celebrate every month.

MATT: Annual. What’s the word for…?

NASIR: Monthly?

MATT: Yeah, I mean, like, bimonthly two, trimonthly…

NASIR: Biannually?

MATT: I don’t know. What’s twelve?

NASIR: Twelvely? N, that’s not right at all.

MATT: Sure there’s a word for it. We’ll figure it out before the end of the episode. I’ll look it up when you’re saying something or vice versa.

Yeah, you’ve been wanting to talk about… we’ve been scouring the interwebs for a pizza-related legal story for a month now because you really want to talk about it and then we had some that’s at least a little bit and it deals with Pizza Hut which I know we talked about before too but this is a pretty interesting thing that happened. This was in New York. What happened here was a couple of delivery drivers – and then it looks like it might turn into class action lawsuit, or at least that what they’re discussing right now, the possibility of it but – two delivery drivers for Pizza Hut are suing the company, claiming that delivery fees – and I’m using the word “delivery fees,” we’ll get into this but – the tips versus delivery fee is an issue and we’ll get into that but they’re saying that these delivery fees should be money that goes to the delivery drivers and instead company or the employer – aka Pizza Hut – is keeping them. What is exactly is happening? You call in to Pizza Hut, you order your whatever, and they say, “All right, delivery… “

NASIR: Wait, wait, wait… what do you order?

MATT: I don’t know I haven’t been to Pizza Hut in a while. I like pepperoni jalapeno is pretty good. I think that was the Philip Rivers thing. Did you see that? Not to get too far. You know Philip Rivers?

NASIR: No. Yeah. I know Philip Rivers, yeah, quarter back of the San Diego Chargers.

MATT: Yes, he got a big contract a couple of weeks ago, making him one of the highest-paid players guaranteed money wise – like, just an insane amount of money. He was at the press conference and they were like, “Well, what did you do with the money? What did you do after you found out?” He was like, “Well, I guess I’m Domino’s, Domino’s Pizza.” It was like, “Okay. Like, what you get?” He’s like, “Oh, pepperoni and jalapeno and black olive is my choice.”

NASIR: Wait, was it a commercial or was it a press conference?

MATT: This was his actual press conference. They asked him what he did to celebrate he said he ordered Domino’s.

NASIR: That’s funny!

MATT: I guess he also has like eight kids or something crazy like that so maybe it makes sense.

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: But anyways, that’s what I’d get. Pepperoni jalapeno is pretty good but, man, you got me off- track now. Okay. You call Pizza Hut, you get this and they say, “Pick up or delivery?” You say delivery and they say, “All right. Well, there is a delivery fee of $3.00 or whatever it is.” I don’t know the actual amount.

NASIR: I think it was $2.00 and now it’s $3.00, I think.

MATT: Okay. So, you say yes and then pizza’s made, delivery guy or girl goes out to deliver the pizza and some people might look at that and be like, “Oh! I already paid the delivery fee. I don’t need to tip. This is the tip.” While others say the delivery fee is something or the tip is something that’s on top of the delivery fee. You probably wouldn’t know this unless you delivered pizzas like I did but it’s something a lot of people probably just don’t even know about.

What happened here – in New York at least – they distinguish between “delivery fee” and a tip or gratuity and so the delivery fee can b...

Nasir and Matt revisit the Ashley Madison scandal for a third time to discuss data breaches, class action lawsuits, and fraudulent accounts.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. My name is Nasir Pasha.

MATT: Did you say Nasir Pasha?

NASIR: No, I said Nasir Pasha.

MATT: Well, I’m Matt Staub, but it sounded like you said Sir Pasha.

NASIR: Yes, Nasir Sir Pasha.

MATT: You’ve reached another level of royalty, I guess.

NASIR: I was at one level of royalty but I got to the next level of royalty.

MATT: Yeah, you were at one then you went to two.

NASIR: Oh, very good. Well, life is short, Matt. You should have an affair and then get caught with it.

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: That’s my advice.

MATT: They cancel each other out so then you’re at square one.

NASIR: Yeah, exactly.

MATT: Well, I think that’s what a lot of men were trying to do. Well, let me step back. I don’t think any men were trying to get caught but a lot of men were.

NASIR: But, in a way, were they though? They weren’t; they were just asking for it, no?

MATT: No, they were asking for it, but we’re talking about the Ashley Madison stuff again just because we have to because there are so many things going on.

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: But I don’t see how any reasonable person could sign up for that and be like, “Yeah, this could definitely work out.” I mean, I don’t think they were expecting this massive leak of information or all the accounts that got signed up.

NASIR: No.

MATT: Just who are the people that were signing up with their work account?

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: Why would these people ever do that? I don’t really understand it.

NASIR: Exactly. There’s a lot of issues here and hopefully we get to cover it all.

One of the main things that these class action lawsuits that are coming out now, there’s one in California that’s pretty big and another one in Toronto – that’s where the company is based – and they’re suing them – not only Ashley Madison but the parent company as well. Basically, if you paid $19.00, you would get your data deleted. Apparently, they were doing some of it, but there were some accounts according to the California lawsuit that weren’t scrubbed. But, if you look at even what they did purport to scrub, in the raw data that was released, they don’t quite delete the whole email address; they just delete the first part of it which is pretty strange. And then, second, apparently, they also include the GPS location of where you’re at and what your likes and dislikes are so it is anonymized to a certain degree – at least the default is – but, even then, they say that there were some accounts that weren’t deleted at all or somehow their personal information was still identifiable.

MATT: Yeah, which is not surprising because that seems like how everything was run with this company from the get-go. I mean, one thing I thought that was funny that came out was, you know, they advertised this 70 to 30 split male-to-female which isn’t too great but, you know, it’s still decent.

NASIR: Believable.

MATT: Yeah, but after all this information’s been coming out, they’re saying it’s more akin to a 95 to 5 split with the 5 percent of females pretty much not even using the account.

NASIR: And then, 50 percent of that 5 percent were actually men.

MATT: Yeah, I mean, we don’t know for sure yet but what’s believed is this is what happens and I think there’s pretty good evidence of it is that Ashley Madison was just creating these fake female accounts to ramp up the numbers and now that’s just one of the many deceitful things that this company did.

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: Now, I mean, it’s one thing to have the data hacked into and all dumped out but, you know, that’s one problem. But now they’re really digging into the company and seeing all these other fraudulent things that have occurred. I saw some pretty sizeable numbers. I mean, the class actions alone,

Nasir and Matt close out the week by discussing the fallout of Jared the Subway guy and how his sponsorship will impactthe company.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to that business news. My name’s Nasir Pasha.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub.

NASIR: Eat fresh. Subway.

MATT: You got it.

NASIR: Sad story but we have to cover it.

MATT: Yeah. Well, probably not too much will happen between when we record and when this episode gets released. I think most of it has kind of fallen out. For those of you that don’t know, Jared Fogle, he’s definitely one of, probably the biggest spokesman. They have athletes all the time.

NASIR: They do, yeah.

MATT: But I think everybody knows who he is – the guy who lost over 200 pounds or something like that, you know. Basically, he was obese and would walk to Subway every day. Unfortunately, at my alma mater but that’s fine. He would walk back and forth every day, get whatever, I forget what the subs he got. He got a six-inch turkey sub for lunch and a foot-long veggie for dinner or something, I don’t know. Walked there and lost a bunch of weight, become famous. Well, he’s still going to be famous but he’s probably not going to be with Subway any time soon because he got dinged and he’s going to enter a guilty plea now – at least as of reading this – for child pornography charges. I think his foundation that he had, the guy who was running that I think got brought in for similar charges earlier in the year, maybe last year, tried to kill himself in prison, didn’t work.

NASIR: Yeah, if you read the details, I don’t really want to get into it because the details will just make you sick.

MATT: Pretty rough.

NASIR: But it’s not only child pornography but also illicit sexual conduct with a minor.

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: At least that’s what he’s pleading guilty to but, even with the pornography that he had, apparently, it had to do with that founder. Anyway, that’s not the big point of all of this but just really sickening all around. But, nonetheless, I mean, what the heck do you do from Subway’s perspective? I mean, this guy, I mean, I think his net worth now – I don’t know now but at the top of his game – was around $15 million or so, according to the New York Daily News a few years ago. They were paying him quite a bit of money. You know, Subway has had huge success since then. I mean, they’ve had other successes with their $5.00 foot-long promotion and so forth but this guy was Subway, you know. If you asked who the spokesperson was, it would be Jared. Now, they had him do a pretty quick exit and they found, I think, when he was first arrested which was about a month ago is when they first heard about this and they ceased their relationship.

MATT: Yeah, and like you said, I mean, this happens all the time, it just happened with someone that – well, in Donald Trump’s case, he was more of a prominent figure.

NASIR: Yeah.

MATT: If you recall back to – I don’t even know how many years it’s been – I think 2008 if I call the Tiger Woods stuff.

NASIR: Yeah, that’s right. He lost sponsorships too but they brought them back, right, eventually?

MATT: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think Subway’s bringing…

NASIR: No, they’re not bringing him back. Well, Lance Armstrong lost a bunch of deals after they found out he admitted to doping or whatever the story is. I don’t remember.

MATT: Yeah, I’m thinking like Michael Vick and stuff too. But this is an instance where it’s one guy who I’m sure he probably actually has other or he had other sponsorships, but he’s basically known for being the sponsor of one company – not vice versa.

NASIR: I don’t think so. I don’t guarantee it but I bet you that Subway made an exclusive deal with him because, again, he was Subway.

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: I’ve had clients that have had celebrity sponsorships. It’s not an uncommon way for marketing, even for small businesses,

Nasir and Matt discuss a variety of topics the legalities of filming people for a reality TV show to releases to Shark Tank.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. My name is Nasir Pasha, and you are listening to the best episode ever.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub, and I hope that’s correct or it turns out to be correct.

NASIR: Actually, I’m nervous about this episode because it’s about reality TV and it’s your favorite genre so I just don’t want to mess it up.

MATT: My favorite genre? Uh, I don’t know about genre. I mean, if sports is a TV genre, that’d definitely be favorite.

NASIR: Oh, yeah, sports.

MATT: I mean, after that, I like comedy more than… I think that’s very well-documented on it podcast.

NASIR: Do you know what the best show on television is right now? By the way, if my family’s listening, they already know the answer to this question because I say it all the time – best show on television, do you have a guess?

MATT: According to you?

NASIR: No, just period.

MATT: I can guess but it’s not going to be right.

NASIR: It’s a reality show and it’s a comedy show and the name of the show is Impractical Jokers.

MATT: Yeah, you’ve told me this before.

NASIR: I have told you this before – best show on television, hands down. Anyone who says otherwise, I will correct them. You can just let me know and I’ll correct you.

MATT: You know, you did tell me that before and I watched it and it was actually, I’d never seen it before, I just thought it was going to be really stupid and it was better than I thought. I wouldn’t go “best show” but…

NASIR: I don’t know. It’s the only show that I can just be like, put it on and just enjoy, you know. But we’re not here to talk about that – I want to but we’re not.

MATT: We’re not?

NASIR: No.

MATT: That’s all I prepared for. I had all these pranks ready. So, this show, I didn’t even look at… is it NY Med? Yeah, NY Med is a reality show and I’ve never seen it. I knew there was a Boston one that was similar that was on so it’s basically like a real-life ER or Grey’s Anatomy – except probably a lot less or probably a lot more realistic – but it’s this reality show called NY Med and it’s shooting footage of an emergency room essentially – or it was in this instance – and it actually caught some footage of someone in the ER, a patient, passing away and I guess that showed up on the show. Of course, they wouldn’t have obviously gotten the person who passed away’s permission but they didn’t get permission from the family or anyone. They just kind of put it in there and kind of went on with their business and I don’t think the family even knew they were shooting it until the video showed up on TV, I believe.

NASIR: No. Apparently, they just found out which is weird in itself, of course.

MATT: Yeah, I wonder why they were watching. So, they did some procedural of what’s happened so far. They sued ABC and the hospital and actually the judge has already dismissed that so they’re in appellate court in New York right now, state court.

NASIR: The faces I think were unrecognizable so people don’t actually know who they are. You know, if you’re in the medical industry, the first thing you’re thinking about is HIPAA which is a statute that basically protects the private information of patients. But one thing that everyone knows about HIPAA is that, if you de-identify the information – because HIPAA information or medical charts and so forth – that data becomes very valuable but, in order to share it, sometimes, what they do is they just de-identify the patient information by taking away the name and any kind of other identifiable information and then you can typically transfer it freely. There’s conditions to that but the point is that, in the reality show context, you put a little blurred face in there and then you should be good, and I think that’s where the court kind of came down to and where the...

The guys close out the week by talking about the Houston based restaurant that failed to make a donation to a local food bank and latertried to rectify the situation by running an unapproved fundraiser.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to the business news. My name is Nasir Pasha and also joining us…

MATT: Is Matt Staub.

NASIR: Very good. We just got done with Restaurant Week a couple of weeks ago in Houston. When’s Restaurant Week in San Diego? I can’t remember.

MATT: There’s a full-blown restaurant week and then there is some sort of half restaurant week or something or a pre-restaurant week but it’s not really… I don’t know. But I never participated because I don’t eat desserts.

NASIR: Oh, yeah, it’s always like a three-course. I’m sure everyone’s aware. I usually go to restaurants during Restaurant Week but never order the fixed menu.

MATT: The prefixed? Yeah.

NASIR: It’s usually at least a three-course meal, right? Sometimes it’s five or what-have-you, depending on the restaurant you go to.

MATT: Yeah. Usually, you’re looking at an appetite… like, an appetizer/starter, an entrée, and a dessert. And so, I’m not a big appetizer fan. I don’t eat desserts – period. For me, it doesn’t really make sense.

NASIR: Period?

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: I don’t eat desserts – question mark. I do eat desserts. Actually, it looks like San Diego Restaurant Week is coming in in a month. In fact, they have one month, seven days, two hours, thirty minutes, and four, three, two, one seconds.

MATT: By the time this episode comes out, it’ll be closer.

NASIR: Yeah. Why are we talking about this again?

MATT: We’re talking about it because, in your backyard, in Houston, have you been to the Sparrow Bar + Cookshop?

NASIR: No, it doesn’t sound like my cup of tea anyway.

MATT: Well, yeah, it does. I mean, you like cool, trendy places.

NASIR: I guess that’s true. I don’t like that it has a plus sign within the name. Like, how do you pronounce that? “Sparrow Bar plus Cookshop?” Just thinking about putting it into my Google to search for it or telling people, “Oh, meet us at…” I guess it’s just Sparrow and then it says Bar and Cookshop. Anyway…

MATT: It’s because you don’t like math so the plus sign, you’re confused.

NASIR: Yeah, there’s no equal sign. Where is the solution? If it gave me the solution, then I’d be fine.

MATT: Yeah. So, this Sparrow Bar + Cookshop put on or announced a $45.00 prefixed menu in August to help raise money for the Houston Food Bank. The only problem is this fell outside of the Houston Restaurant Week so people were thinking, “Well, that’s kind of weird. I mean, usually, we do this $45.00 prefix or whatever the prefix menu during Restaurant Week like everyone else does.” Then, people did some digging and found out that, back in 2013, there was supposed to be a donation made to the Houston Food Bank. There in fact was not a donation made so the belief was that this $45.00 prefix menu was to cover that donation from two years prior. Also, I guess there’s guidelines for the food bank and you can’t use a charity’s name without their permission and failing to disclose how much of the $45.00 will be donated – both of which SB+C failed to do, didn’t get permission, and did not disclose how much would be donated.

NASIR: What’s interesting is that, apparently, the person that wrote this article tried to get comment from the chef who apparently is some famous chef – or I don’t know if famous – she won Top Chef Masters Veteran, Monica Pope – it’s the person that owns it, I guess. But she was on vacation so she couldn’t comment. It’s hard to know exactly what happened here. All we know is that this Houston Food Bank didn’t actually receive any funds. By the way, Houston Restaurant Week is actually Houston Restaurant Weeks. Apparently, it lasts for like, I don’t know…

MATT: 52 weeks.

NASIR: It’s 52 weeks a year.

Nasir and Matt discuss how racism led to employees getting fired and another instance where a judge overturned a decision to terminate a racist employee.

Full Podcast Transcript

NASIR: Okay. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to that business news. My name is Nasir Pasha.

MATT: And I’m Matt Staub.

NASIR: And welcome to our program. I’m excited today because we get to talk about racism – my favorite topic.

MATT: Your favorite topic?

NASIR: Well, every podcast topic is my favorite topic.

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: That’s how I justify that comment.

MATT: So, right off the bat, I’m a little curious about this story that we’re going to start with. I guess there was a manager at a Lowe’s in Virginia and they had an African American delivery truck driver and I guess assuming a white customer was not happy with the fact that the black driver was the one making the deliveries so that person requested that they have a white driver do the deliveries. My first question is – before we get too deep into it – like, how many deliveries from Lowe’s is someone getting where this is an actual issue? I don’t know if that’s going to be answered in this but that was my first question. And so, the customer makes the request in asking if someone else can be the delivery person that was white. When the manager of Lowe’s asked why and she said, “Because you’re black.”

NASIR: I think you’re misreading it.

MATT: Oh, that’s the manager.

NASIR: Yeah, that’s the manager, because actually what happened was some woman was I guess inside the store and I guess they knew beforehand because apparently she wouldn’t deal with any of the black customer service representatives or salesmen. And so, when she had a delivery, they already knew beforehand that she didn’t want any black delivery drivers for her particular delivery. For some reason, I picture an old, old woman but I suppose it could be young, too. That’s just I guess my image of it.

MATT: Now you’re running into age problems.

NASIR: Ageist?

MATT: Yeah.

NASIR: Is it better to be a racist or to be an ageist?

MATT: I think it’s worse to be racist because, if you’re ageist, the older people are going to die off sooner than the…

NASIR: Wrong answer. They’re both equally bad.

MATT: Oh.

NASIR: It was a trick question.

MATT: That’s fine. I’m sticking with my answer.

NASIR: All kind of prejudice is wrong, Matt.

MATT: If you’re ageist and you’re against older people, eventually, you will become older presumably and it doesn’t work the other way where, if you’re against one race, you’re most likely not going to become the other race throughout time.

NASIR: You could be against younger people and you’re no longer going to be younger either so, even though you once were, it’s like you’ve transitioned out. It’s like, “Okay, I’m better than that now, I’m no longer five years old.”

MATT: Or maybe you’re just against anyone who’s not your age?

NASIR: Also very similar. Well, anyway, back to racism…

MATT: So, we had this incident with this customer and the manager – I mean, they say the customer is always right but I think this was one of those times where the manager has to step in and say something. I think it’s worth losing this one customer over this issue because the manager ended up going forward with it and, as a result, this manager – and I believe two others involved, right? – ended up getting terminated as a result.

NASIR: Yeah, and it’s weird. Of course, the conversation you were referencing is that conversation with the driver and one of the managers. It’s like, “Okay, well, why can’t I just go?” and this is according to the driver and he describes the manager as telling him that, “Oh, it’s because you’re black.” Of course, that’s probably the worst answer you can respond to that question. I kind of understand it because it’s like, you know, “This lady is being unreasonable or whatever. I just want to do my job.