The Ohio Renaissance Festival Protest

Food Service Manager to be fired?

Has anyone noticed the pretzels being sold off a pole are now covered by a paper sleeve? Yep, you heard it here first. Food has to be covered prior to sale. In the case of the pretzels walking around the park on the end of a long pole, this is to prevent bugs from landing on them and birds from pooping on them. They were not covered previously, this year they are in paper sleeves, why do you think that is? Because this protest is working and one by one the Ohio Renaissance Festival is making the changes that are demanded. One issue at a time, they are admitting that they were WRONG.

Here is a link to the article here about the Pretzels

First, according to Dan Roth, they FIRED Marietta Marcin. She did not move on as the new letter states. Dan Roth was rather clear that she was FIRED. In fact, I think I have it legally recorded as part of the message was on an answering machine, hence he knew it was being recorded.

I think the food service manager, who is evidently a friend of Marietta Marcin, will be the next to get the axe.

I would like to share with you my reason for believing this. During the 2007 season, I brought up the health code violation of the way the pretzels were being sold at the Ohio Renaissance Festival. Rather than addressing the problem, the Food Serviced Manager joined with Marietta Marcin in her attacks on my character.

In my fateful meeting with Peter Carroll, one of the things that Marietta Marcin claimed was that I had not been forging that season. According to her, this information came from the food services manger. Additionally, I was attacked for having piles of trash behind my building and reportedly the food services manager thought this was a health risk as if somehow my cardboard boxes would infect his Pepsi building.

The truth behind this is that during the day, we tossed our boxes into a pile out of site in our own area. At night, we brought a truck around and carried those boxes off. The real issue is that I provided my booth staff with their own porta potty at a cost of several hundred dollars a year. This porta potty was in my private area, defined by a privacy fence. In the past, I had let he Pepsi booth people use that porta potty. That final year, we caught several of the young kids working there urinating in the area defined by my privacy fence. Note I am not talking about in the porta potty. I am saying they were urinating just 10 feet from where my crew works. This was unacceptable, so we told the adult in charge that we were done, no more teenagers pissing in our back yard.

As a result, we were screamed at by Peter Carroll about the boxes. Now later that morning Cheryl Bales and the official photographer came for a visit. They took pictures and hung out for some time. Both observed no boxes. Why? Because it was morning, we hadn’t sold much yet.

Well, now it is the 2008 season. Marietta Marcin is no longer staff at ORF and the Pretzels are covered with paper sleeves. Evidently ORF Inc. has figured out I was right about Marietta Marcin and evidently they have discovered the Food Service Manager does not know health code.

I thus predict the Food Services manager will soon get the axe. Why? Well, because it would seem like knowing the health code is the responsibility of this position. By not keeping with health code, by cutting corners, this person is exposing the Ohio Renaissance Festival to further problems. Let’s face it, I have no education in food service management and I can spot many of the problems at ORF Inc. How many do you think exist that I have not yet spotted?