In this week’s anti-commercial message, Secretary of State Shantel Krebs is trying to put the Mitchell Taco John’s out of business.
Testifying Monday in Senate State Affairs on House Bill 1286, Secretary Krebs sidebarred on her health:
Thank you, by the way, for the Doctor of the Day for giving me some little—I had some food poisoning, and so we’re getting through the day. Don’t eat at—I’m just going to say on the record don’t eat at Taco John’s in Mitchell. All three of us that were in the car on Saturday were all sick [Secretary of State Shantel Krebs, statement to Senate State Affairs during discussion of HB 1286, 2018.03.05, 1:48:54].
Krebs is competing with Dusty Johnson in an increasingly crowded field for the Republican nomination for U.S. House. Johnson lives in Mitchell. The conspiracy-minded among us might wonder if a friend of Dusty’s behind the Mitchell counter recognized Shantel and saw an opportunity to swing the election in his neighbor’s favor. But the conspiracy-minded among us are nuts, just nuts.
The latest info I can find online says the Mitchell Taco John’s is owned by Murray 5G, Inc., of Sioux Falls. The FEC shows no contribution from Ted Miller of Murray 5G to either Johnson or Krebs.
Yet you do not find it the least bit of a problem the Secretary of State is calling out a local business by name to make them look bad? Do you not consider the fact she is using her position of power as a way to attack a small business? She should be censored for doing such and this is just yet another example of the Republican party showing its true colors when it comes to small business.
The Secretary of State can have her opinion as it pertains to any business. This has nothing to do with official business nor does she utilize any account associated with her position so it is not using her position of power. You can’t censor citizens who use their personal accounts to criticize any business. We still live in the USA where free speech is protected. Get your facts straight, John.
Taco Johns was involved in an e-coli lettuce recall in 2006. If Krebs eats crap like what is shown, it is no wonder she got sick and even more amazing she doesn’t weigh a couple hundred kilos.
She must use Drumpf’s bathroom scales.
Just curious, what is that phallic shaped thing on the table in first photo? It looks like a large .22 shell with a nitro sized rim in 2 dimensions.
But, Daniel, was it really food poisoning attributable to Taco Johns in Mitchell and where is the health alert?
Do I consider it a problem, John? The bigger question is what Mitchell voters will think… and perhaps was the business owner might think.
I do find it remarkable that an elected official would make such a comment on the record in a Legislative hearing, especially during discussion of a completely unrelated bill.
The SD Health Dept. just inspected the Mitchell Taco John’s on Friday, March 2. The store scored a 90% with five violations:
Dan is right that we can say whatever we want about a business. If my family goes to Taco John’s and well get sick, I’ll say so (even though I hate to think my beloved Potato Olés would ever try to do us in). But I also think John raises a fair question about the propriety of the time and place of Krebs’s comment. She was there speaking not simply as a private citizen with full First Amendment rights. She had been called to the microphone by a legislator as the Secretary of State to explain HB 1286. John could argue that her comments at that point are not fully protected by the First Amendment but are limited by the obligations of her elected office and the agenda of the Senate State Affairs Committee.
Shantel’s Tweet says she ate last night at the Buffalo Wild Wings at 909 West Avenue North, between the Premier Center and Covell Lake. I don’t see a DOH inspection score up for them.
Yet another example of Ms Krebs showing to me that she wasn’t who I thought she might be.
Fine, if Taco John’s “gave you food poisoning”, that is an issue. But to use her position and the government time (taxpayer time) to voice this …..um…..concern? Inappropriate, unprofessional, and way out of line.
I just gotta ask. Ms Krebs, if you really believe and think that you received food poisoning from this restaurant, isn’t your duty ESPECIALLY as an elected official/one who is charged with serving the public, to contact the Department of Health?
Ms Krebs sure does employ some interesting decision making. Using a public forum/government time to accuse a small business of giving her and her friends food poisoning — and then on the flip side, she supports an admitted sexual predator/harasser of women. wow
Paging Mr.Ted Miller of Murray 5G…Paging Mr. Miller…Please look at Dakota Free Press for campaign website information on Democratic challenger Tim Bjorkman advise on how to contribute. Also, consider your sites for GOTV, you’ll be glad you did.
If Ms Krebs truly suffered from food poisoning she contracted on Sat, 3/3, it seems unlikely that she would still be suffering ill effects 48 hrs later.
Btw, a Dept of Health inspection score of 90 is not particularly good. It is a ‘passing’ grade, but most establishments would consider it unacceptable.
Have there been other reports of food poisoning from this particular Taco John’s or was Krebs the only one affected?
For a government official to make this claim it surely has to be supported by a doctor’s statement.
Did Krebs report her food poisoning to
proper state agencies?
The 1st Amendment properly covers Krebs rights, but if she can’t be exact in her claim there is now a question of validity to her accusation.
Perhaps the food-poisoning accusation could constitute business defamation (slander) if untrue?
Slander or not, it sure seemed to be quite reckless for a state official to blurt out anything like that. I have not seen any reports of health warnings or alerts in any type of media from Mitchell or anywhere else in South Dakota.
What was she thinking?????
Bearcreekbat, if BPI can force ABC to settle for calling its product “pink slime,” I dread to think what Taco John’s could to us for calling its Potato Olés a danger to public health.
But should we shed any tears for a business that leaves a group of customers (remember: Shantel said there were three in her party, and they all got sick) unsatisfied?
so much for anecdotal evidence. kinda like letting rounds avoid GOAC subpoena power and have paid-for lawyers politicaly answer written questions in a vacuum
Ate the other night again at our TACO JOHN’S and had a great meal…felt so good had a vodka martini as a nightcap later that evening…
Any way you look at this it is a bad political move by a politician who aspires to a higher political office. Enough said.
Trying to pinpoint your abdominal cramps on a specific restaurant is a crap shoot at best, pun intended. Unless you get diagnosed at a Doctors office, with a specific food poisoning bug, you are merely guessing at the cause of your problems. Typically Food Poisoning takes around 24 hours to manisfest once the food is injested When people get sick they immediately think of the last place they ate as the culprit. Ignorance is bliss!
Master, is there some other part to this story, like an April Fool’s joke? This is too weird of a happening even in Northern Mississippi. Something(s) is missing.
Mr. C, there were two others of Ms. Krebs employ in the car and they also ate at the Taco John. They also got sick. I think Mr. H uncovered, with his sleuthing and inside connections, the reason why. An employee went to the John and didn’t wash his hands, then pulled out some plastic forks and spoons for Ms. Krebs from the bucket where the pointy sides were not lined up. This spread gut germs on the plasticware and ultimately sickened the 2 young ladies and gentleman.
Ms. Krebs is not a stout individual, actually fairly dainty, and that kind of gut sickness can really do a job on a person of her size. She had full right to point out that Taco John did a gut job on her. We are lucky she made it back to the legislatures at all.
I think what some of us are missing here is that Taco John’s sells garbage that would never sell too far out beyond this 5 state area.
It’s the worst fast food I have ever tasted. I’ve only eaten it twice in 15 years. I think it nearly takes a Trump voter to eat that crap.
Agreed, Adam.
The stench of Taco John’s is enough to give me food poisoning. I only ate there once and will never go back. They all smell the same.
Grudzie- if she believes she got sick from Taco Johns, where is the public announcement that sez Taco Johns may have a food poisoning problem? It does not make sense that there has been no public outcry, admissions or something to alert the public.
The citizenry cannot let pols make possibly slanderous accusations against businesses without some solid evidence. Where is it? And where is the connection to Mitchell’s Taco John?
I don’t know, Mr. mike. Maybe the public is outcrying, or maybe the people who live in Mitchell have a belly that has grown accustomed and impervious to superbugs from poop, like those in Iowa where pig poop bugs are in every burrito and waffle house.
If the young lady, insaner than most, slandered a Taco John then let John file some complaints, I say. It would be good for business and good for entertainment. Is it possible that Mr. Dusty eats at this Taco John often and Ms. Krebs just wants to shut it down out of spite? Mr. Dusty is smoking her chorizo in the pollings.
Be a riot if there actually was a bug and dozens of people caught it and all the time yer SOS didn’t bother to inform the business or the public.
One could come to expect such as that in Northern MIssissippi.
Adam, I respectfully disagree on this matter of taste. Offer me Potato Olés, and I will say please and thank you. Mmmmm. But I’ll remember not to bring a Six Pack and a Pound when you and Roger and I party. :-)
It’s no joke, Mike! The words I quote are on the audio from Senate State Affairs.
Curious: do any of anti-Taco John’s comments here constitute the same sort of business slander that we’re wondering if Krebs committed? Or commenters here as free as Secretary Krebs to discourage or encourage people from eating at certain restaurants?
Cory, I’m guessing Krebs has the only actionable, slanderous statement if she can’t prove she had food poisoning and got it from Taco Johns.
I am still having trouble with the part where no one in the whole state seems bothered by the statement, not even the offended party-Taco Johns. That is what I meant when I said something is missing.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not an attorney….blah,blah, blah.
Defamation by slander of a business requires a false statement of fact aimed at disparaging the business. The negative comments I have seen on this blog appear to be statements of opinion rather than fact and would not be actionable in my view.
Here is the SD definition of slander:
Subsection (3) seems to be most relevant here.
Thanks for the citation, BCB! While not relevant to the Taco John’s case, I am intrigued to see #4: question my manhood, and I can sue? Wowza!
Dang: and #1 could easily have been applied to Chad Haber and Pat Powers’s accusation that I broke into Chad Haber’s office and desk in 2013. If only I had spare cash for a lawyer… but then if I had spare cash to blow on a lawyer, wouldn’t I have even less need to worry about such petty slanders?
#3… not that I’m trying to put my friends in jail, but Adam said TJ’s sells garbage, and Roger said all TJ’s have a stomach-turning smell. Couldn’t those statements trigger a #3 complaint as surely as Shantel’s?
“False and unprivileged” narrows the field, but “natural tendency to lessen its profit” seems an awfully broad standard.
Defamation claims are tough in general, but: Sells garbage? A true statement. I occasionally eat at Taco John’s and I always have left over packaging that I purchased and ultimately place in the garbage bin.
Smell? A matter of preference or opinion.
Food poisoning? A factual claim about the unsafe nature of Taco John’s food.
Your manhood? Definitely sacred.
Celery salt on tater tots does not a Mexican fast food make. It’s funny, when I talk to Taco John’s fans, across the board, the only thing they mention they love about the place is the tater tots.
I grew sick of tater tots back in grade school. By high school, they had become my least favorite potatoe product, and they remain in that same ranking today. I do like celery salt though.
Your market observation makes sense, Adam. Those squashed tots distinguish TJ’s in the marketplace—no one else makes them! Funny that a completely non-Mexican food becomes the signature food of a Mexican-themed restaurant.
So if you’re not going to eat those tots, can I have ’em? :-)
I’m with Cory and the rest of the midwest – send those Ole’s over here if you don’t want them. TJs all smell the same because they make the same food – I think it would be a bigger problem if they all smelled different, don’t you?
In BCB’s statutes, it references a “person” being the victim of slander – I didn’t look to see if business entities are defined as persons under that particular chapter, but that would be one place to start. Second is whether or not there was harm or injury. I would doubt too many people in Mitchell care about Kreb’s critique of the TJs and I would imagine their cash register didn’t get any lighter after her comments, so there would be no injury for which to seek redress.
I would be curious to see what Adam and Roger eat instead of the apparent garbage the rest of us eat, just to compare our tastes. I have co-workers who pick on my dumpster diet, but they eat stuff like Panera bread so I can’t take them seriously. Panera salads taste like sand and the bread on their sandwiches is rock-hard. Just sayin’.
Taco John’s do all smell the same for the obvious reason and the smell to me and that stench smells old stale grease, eat it if you want, I really don’t care.
What do I eat, I eat mostly my own cooking, I’m a very good and have often been referred to as a chef.
There is very little fast food in my diet even though I’m surrounded by every fast food franchise in the area. Fast food is a waste of money, often what you spend for a meal at one of these places than for a healthy meal.
When I do dine out, I prefer good restaurants with good service, in Rapid City there are a number of locally owned eateries that I enjoy.
Roger, if you haven’t tried the Golden Phoenix on west main in Rapid you have been missing some of the best chinese cuisine in the midwest. Although not on the menu, they used to make a wide variety of Korean dishes if you knew what to ask for. I used to dine there with a Korean war vet who introduced me to some of the more interesting dishes I have every tasted. That is where I learned to love Kimchi, which they still serve today.
Bear,
The Golden Phoenix is great, I’ve dined there a number of times, they are very generous with their servings and often had a few days in leftovers.
I’ve probably dined more frequently at the Imperial Chinese Restaurant on East North mostly because they always remember me.
If anyone hasen’t yet tried any of the 3 (relatively new) Hymalian restaurants in RC, they’ve just simply been missing out – BIG TIME – great stuff – blows your mind with new flavors!
Adam,
Which Hymalian restaurant would you recommend? I’ll add to my list of go to eateries.
If you like real traditional Mexican food I would suggest Sabor A Mexico on East North Street. No Mexican/American food on their menu.
Roger, yes, Sabor a Mexico is the 100% correct, true, answer to all of West River’s Mexican food needs.
The new place called ‘Himalayan Kitchen’ is currently being setup/run by a very special guy who travels the country setting up these awesome restaurants. Once he gets an establishment all configured for business, he gives up control and moves to the next. While this guy is in control, it’s pretty special, so do check out the new place out on Mt. Rushmore Rd!