Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Dec. 8, 1943, edition 1 / Page 1
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I Vice President Speaks In Memorial Hail Sa turday Evening SEE STORY PAGE 3 NEWS EDITORIALS To Leave Undone Another -30- Tar Heel Edit Food Situation Wallace Speech Legislature Acts Serving Civilian and Military Students at UNC Business and Circulation : IM1 CHAPEL HILL, N. C, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1943 Editorial: F-S141, N NUMBER 21 W M Sill0 As Heel IiuYestisrate Local Food Sitmatioiii Price Panel Releases Yio to Decision Staff Reports On GM Grill, Carolina Inn By Sam Whitehall Long lines, dirty silverware, poorly prepared food, reduced servings, short ages of meat, few servings of butter, hot cold plates and cold hot dishes these have been the frequent earmarks of the Carolina Inn cafeteria during the past few weeks. "There have been no Increases in the prices charged for food in the cafe teria here," stated Theodore Pender graf t, general manager of the cafe teria, in a telephone conversation with the editor of the Tar Heel. "I eat here, paying regular prices for my food, and I can eat three substantial meals a day for $1.60 a day." Investigating the validity of that statement, the Tar Heel sent four stu dents around to the Inn to purchase a typical weekday evening meal. The meal, consisting of liver, carrots, po tatoes, a salad made up of two slices of tomatoes, salad dressing, and wilted endive pie, rolls with no butter, milk grade C and a small orange juice, amounted to 72 cents. Subtracted from the proposed $1.60 as the cost of a substantial breakfast, dinner and supper, a total of 88 cents was Jef t with which to pay for the other two daily meals. Since the first few days in Novem bex when steaks were served from the trays behind the cafeteria counter, meat choices have included a standard daily menu of fish, and egg omelette supplemented by alternations between ; chicken and' liver, with baked turkey added to the menus on Sundays. A single serving of baked turkey with dressing costs 30 cents. Grill Serving Little Meat Pig tails, pig lips, and backbone have been the meat course of students eat ing at the Graham Memorial Grill dur ing the past week. This array of pork products being carved from various parts of the hog has been due to an acute shortage of ration points brought on by a pur ported over-indulgence during the early part of the ration period. Supplementing the pig-products at the grill have been other meats such as chicken in varied forms: a la king on toast, stewed, roasted, fried, hash, and loaf. Oysters have taken a prom inent place on the menu along with meat loaves of various kinds. Some times liver is served. Aside from an occasional slice of turkey or a rationed piece of meat, this list completes the offerings of Graham Memorial in the meat department. Vegetables still hold up, and with the See GM GRILL, page U The Count On Ratings . -2 w SfMwCH SHOP (7 cmms GRFE Survey Shows Five B Ratings Chapel Hill can not, at present, boast of one A grade eating establishment. Displays of the ratings in each of these establishments show that of the eight places serving the majority of the civilian student population of the University five have grade B ratings, one has a grade C rating and two dis play no rating cards at all. Closest to the top stands the. Port hole, which until the latest inspection by- officials from the health depart ment, boasted a grade A rating. Other places in the grade B category are the Carolina Inn cafeteria, Harry's Grill, Graham Memorial Grill and the Coffee Shop. C Ratings Dropping down a point, the Sand wich Shop stands with ratings of C. The University Cafe and the Campus Cafe at present display no restaurant ratings. When questioned by a Tar Heel re porter as to the reason why no rating certificate was on display, the manager of the University Cafe said that the health inspector had recently taken his rating card away in order to give him a new one. He also said that his rating had been a C before the inspector took it. At the Campus Cafe the manager told the reporter the same thing, say ing that his rating had been B until the inspector came to change it. A Tar Heel Edit . . . During the past few months in Chapel Hill, there have been more com plaints about the eating conditions here than about everything else put together. ' " ' " ' -. . Some of the complaints have been unfounded. A very great majority of them have had a sound basis. But since the beginning of the summer eating conditions in Chapel Hill have grown steadily worse. Restaurants downtown and the two University run eating places are no longer crowded during meal hours; they are packed and jammed. Restaurant owners, seeing that they could get more business than they could satisfactorily take care of, have grown more and more lax about the conditions of their establishments in regard to sanitation, general cleanliness, in regard to what kind of food they served, and in regard to how it was prepared and how it was served. "If you don't like it here, get out. Just try and get something to eat somewhere else," is the attitude assumed by many of them. All, of course, are not guilty. To those Chapel Hill merchants who have served us in the past and who are continuing to serve us to the best of their abilities, we owe an overdue vote of thanks. It is not of you we are protesting. This investigation by the Tar Heel is concerned with finding out just which merchants are guilty, with bringing the present conditions to light in the hope that something can be done to improve them. Our one hope is that those responsible will finally move to clear the conditions. Our complaints against the eating situation in Chapel Hill are not made with a selfish motive. We realize quite clearly that food shortages and increasing shortages of labor have been brought about by the war. But we also realize that it is a comparatively simple thing for unscrupulous people to take advantage of the situation, to use the war as a means of selfish profiteering. In additions to complaints against the eating conditions, complaints have been frequently lodged against the service in many of the eating establishments. The problem of feeding the some 1600 civilian students in Chapel Hill is at its height. The University, through such channels as its Tar Heel Topics, which originates in South Building, and the News Bureau continues to sent out releases to state papers painting the food situation here as some thing only a little short of perfection. In spite of this propaganda, well meant or otherwise, the problem exists. It is more than time we faced it. '.Four Restaurants Break Ceiling Prices of OPA By John Grant Price ceiling violations were proved for four of Chapel Hill's eating establishments in special Price Panel hearings here. The University cafe, the Campus cafe, the Porthole and Danziger's were all found guilty of what the Panel termed "unwillful violations" of the Office of Price Administration's edicts. This first break in strained Chapel Hill eating facilities came last week as the panel, section of the War Price and Rationing board, heard cases uncovered by a recent state-wide restaurant price survey. TH Investigation News of the four violations coincided with a Tar Heel investigation into the entire food situation in Chapel Hill, a situation which has deteriorated under the pressure of rationing and heavier customer loads for all Franklin street's dining halls. In work that has taken over a month, Tar Heel staff men and editors have amassed a complete dossier on all restaurants in town and plan to turn over their findings to the Price panel for further investigation and action. TH research has brought to light, among other things, three places which raise prices of their regular meals on Sunday. With the addition of only one vegetable, the University cafe adds 25 cents to their top meal, lesser amounts in the other price ranges. With nothing added to the dinner, Sunday consumer costs at the Carolina Coffee shop are jacked up five and ten cents. Customers at the Campus cafe pay 70 cents on Sunday for the same meal sold for 65 cents on weekdays. In Tar Heel conversations with managers of the three restaurants, answers of "I can't tell you about the reasons;" "We add turkey dinner and all different things ... ice cream for dessert;" and "those are our regu lar Sunday prices all the time" were given as to the causes for the Sunday price rises Panel Decision ' Two of the decisions of the Price panel were against restaurants that were found by the Tar Heel to also be among those raising their Sunday prices. Since the panel adjudged the violations of the University, Campus, Mar ley's and Danziger's "unwillful," the severe penalties fof those found guilty under OPA rulings were not enforced in these cases. Instead, the panel in structed the four dining places to donate the money accrued by the "unwill ful" overcharging to the government or charities. These "voluntary contributions" came to $242.90, with the University giving $49 to the U. S. Treasury; Campus $25 to the Treasury; Marley's $163.90 to the Treasury and Danziger's $5 to the Red Cross. OPA Penalty If the restaurants had been proven willful violators, they would have faced suit for damages three times the amount of the overcharge, or $50 plus court and attorneys' fees, according to which proved to be the greater. In addition to the donations, the dining halls found guilty were instructed to lower their prices in accordance with OPA ceilings, judged on the basis of prices charged by the restaurant during the April 4 through April 10 period of this year. In all, eight cases were tried, with the other four found not to involve violations. Price panel chief Sherman Smith noted that by and large the investigation had not shown a large percentage of violations. Investigation In addition to investigation of the Sunday rise in prices, the Tar Heel centered attention on general prices, service and facilities of the town res taurants and the lack of ration points in the University-run dining halls. Heavier Load Since the closing of Lenoir dining hall to the UNC students last year, town and substitute-University restaurants have had to shoulder a heavier load. In the past few months, observers have noted a marked disintegration in the general food situation. In commenting on the publication of facts, Tar Heel editor Kat Hill said, "We are not trying to muckrake, but rather to help better conditions through pointing out vital lapses." li h t - W 4 it, ?3i8& mmmm ii n i i r ii n r wwKwfag iiimiiiii"i'iiw"WwwwMWJWi.wagiwB iixi .pwgippww,i.ij.., !: JK m-.wla '' : :; :: 1 " "' t 1 v--' . v s : -5Ot 5 t i :ox-X'X-,'-:';-:i:v TAR HEEL photographers got this picture of the meal described in the Caro PICTURED ABOVE is the average meal bought by TAR Heel investigators Una Inn 8tory. On the main plate is liver, carrots, potatoes, a salad. There's at the University-run Graham Memorial grill. Main dish is chicken loaf, with i for desert and arade C milk, a small orange juice. The bread has no butter, turnips ana canaiea yams as zae vegeiaoies. appie yit, soma, Farts about Inn cafeteria service were part of the general TH investigation round out the meal that cost the students 63 cents. Reports show that the Grill i the gross sales in the last period, into the strained Chapel Hill eating situation. " " V on -cn-raimiea mean ana potuiry zo onua mem, a j Navy Dining Halls No Drain On University Ration Points Officials in the purchasing department of the University clarified the point status of Lenoir and Swain halls Tuesday in an announcement to the effect that food points used by the Navy are not allotted through the local ration board, but come directly through the local supply officer of each military unit. The amount of points allotted for each dining hall is based on a certain number' of points per person fed per day in the halls. Points are allotted, the restaurant's sales and number for a minimum 30 day period. A previous misunderstanding had led some students to believe that points were being issued from the local board. In the case of the N. C. Cafe teria which opens next quarter, it was learned that the ration points will be allotted by the local board on the basis of the last two months operation in the Spring. Manager of the new cafe teria will be D. R. Brooks. Location will be that formerly occupied by the Pritchard drug store. Outline of the method of allotments was also made by the Board. Points are distributed at the beginning of two month periods.. This means that ra tion points now being used are those allotted for the November-December period. To arrive at a just allotment for a particular restaurant in this pe riod, the number of people served plus August-September, is averaged with served in the November-December pe riod of 1942. According to OPA regulation, all students at the University who eat at an establishment such as the Caro lina Inn eight or more meals per week are required to turn over their ration books to the management. These ra tion books will be held by the man agement until the student calls for them. When the cafe or cafeteria ap plies for more points, the points in the books covering the two months span will be torn out. These points will not go toward increasing the al lotment of the cafe or cafeteria. This regulation is not being followed in Chapel Hill and as a result stu dents may eat in the various places and still use their ration books at will. This procedure results in double ra tions. However this practice is car ried on by some of the permanent residents of Chapel Hill who eat "out' occasionally.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Dec. 8, 1943, edition 1
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