Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

We really, really need a Taco Bell on campus. Please do not let this Student/Farmworker Alliance ("Some U.S. students say 'no quiero Taco Bell'," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 2/22/05) interfere with any negotiations with Taco Bell.

The University needs a cheap, quality fast-food option like Taco Bell. I don't want to pay $6 for a burrito from Qdoba or MexiCali, and no one wants to eat at McDonald's. No one.

You'd be surprised how big of a following Taco Bell already has on campus. In the past, my hallmates and I have taken the El downtown for the sole purpose of getting a club chalupa from Taco Bell.

The entire week after the DP published the story that Taco Bell might be coming, the campus was filled with a buzz, an air of excitement that I have never witnessed before.

Don't let these wannabe hipster non-conformists at other schools with their false claims and blasphemy of heretical protests kill that buzz. Any such protest to reach this campus will be immediately and forcibly met with a counterprotest and proactive petition in favor of Taco Bell.

I know in my heart the University will make the right decision.

Ed FinkCollege '07

To the Editor:

I am disappointed to learn that Penn is in negotiations with Taco Bell to fill empty space in the Moravian Cafes.

While there is a need for healthy, tasty and affordable food at the east end of campus, Taco Bell can only be indisputably said to fit the third of these criteria. Furthermore, the low price of a seven-layer burrito comes with a different kind of cost: The migrant farm workers who supply the chain's tomatoes work for poverty wages, earning 40-50 cents for each 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked.

In a time when student, labor and religious groups are endorsing a boycott of Taco Bell, and eight other universities have kicked them off campus, it strikes me as being in poor taste to invite Taco Bell to Penn.

Kevin Jude

The author is a Ph.D. student in the School of Arts and Sciences

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.