Michael Smerconish | THEY'RE CLEANING UP - IN ENGLISH

1.3.08

Philadelphia Daily News

SO I'M lying on a sunshiny beach in Florida earlier this week, enjoying 84 degrees of warmth, and find that I'm thinking about Joey Vento. No, I wasn't yearning for a "cheeze-wit." I was reading about a language dispute even more insane than the decision by the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission to haul Vento into court.

As we all know, Vento is charged with discrimination for asking his customers to speak English. (The sign at Geno's reads, "This is America. When ordering, please speak English.")

In reality, there's been no discrimination, given that Geno's never turned away anybody who couldn't or didn't comply. Had someone actually been discriminated against, rest assured they'd have surfaced by now and there'd be a civil suit to show for it.

But down in Gatorland, there's a gent named George Koleszarik who might become to the residential cleaning business what Vento is to the cheesesteak industry. Koleszarik is an entrepreneur who earned his master's degree and then decided to open a home-cleaning business in Naples, Fla., a wealthy, conservative community on the Sunshine State's west coast. Whereas Northeasterners seem to flock to destinations near Orlando or Miami, Naples is a second home to many Americans from the Midwest.

In the spring, Koleszarik partnered with a Filipina woman named Cecille Drake to open Cecille's Residential Services. They offer a full complement of housekeeping and house-sitting services. No problem there. But three words on their Web site, brochures and business cards have caused a bit of a dust-up in and around Naples:

"We Speak English."

The company's two vehicles (a 1998 Oldsmobile 98 and a 2006 Toyota Solara) also display the same message.

Cecille's has now become the target of some open hostility.

Drake, who Koleszarik says could be mistaken for Hispanic while driving and wearing sunglasses, has been heckled by Hispanics who think she's one of their own who's sold out, given that she drives a vehicle promoting her cleaning service that touts English- speaking help.

"They call her a 'puta,' " Koleszarik told me. (He declined to translate, but I don't think it's a compliment.) He said some locals shout at her or offer a rude hand gesture while she's driving. "And they wrote '[Bleep] you' on her car when she went into an outlet store," he told me.

Koleszarik told me he now worries that a complaint of discrimination could be in the offing, perhaps owing to the winter migration pattern of the PC community. All this because a company asserts - in three words - that its employees speak English.

The fact that those words could even be perceived as objectionable reminds me of how buttoned-up real-estate advertising has become. Today, fair housing laws prevent real estate advertisements from containing innocuous phrases like "bachelor pad" or even the word "newlyweds" for fear of discriminating against any potential buyer. Ditto for describing your property as "near" a church or synagogue.

In this case, Koleszarik correctly wonders why, if so many businesses proclaim "Se habla Espanol," he can't market his business as one whose owners and support staff speak English.

Especially perplexing is the fact that the cries of discrimination come even though his business partner is an immigrant whose first language isn't English.

"I find it ironic that here in the United States of America, we must advertise that we speak English because it is automatically assumed housekeepers do not," Koleszarik wrote in a recent letter to a local newspaper.

Now the good news.

Cecille's business is booming, and one of the company's owners has reason to believe it's at least in part because of their commitment to speaking English. He thinks he is filling a market niche for clients long frustrated by their inability to speak with their help.

And despite the controversy resulting from Cecille's advertising, the most common single finger reaction they get is a "thumbs-up" from Naples-area residents, Koleszarik told me.

I sense a franchise opportunity. Of course, when they open in Philly, they can call it Geno's. *

Listen to Michael Smerconish weekdays 5:30-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Read him Sundays in the Inquirer. Contact him via the Web at www.mastalk.com.