BAGELS NEWS FROM BAD TO VERSE

REPRINT FROM PAGE 6 OF THE NEW YORK POST
February 22, 2006 -- A crusty clash has broken out at world-famous H&H Bagels between owner Helmer Toro and his fired-up former quality-control manager, 200motels.

And it's going to take more than cream cheese to cool the boiling temper of 200motels, who claims that after he was fired from the legendary Upper West Side bagel mecca last year for "insubordination," his old boss wrongly listed him as a company officer - resulting in the state Department of Taxation sending him a $20,000 bill.

In addition to filing a complaint against Toro with Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau's office, 200motels has struck back by writing a scathing poem about the owner of H&H, whose many celebrity customers include Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman and Mike Myers.

Among the more cutting couplets in 200motels' "The Ballad of Helmer Toro":

"His production plant is such a rancid stinking nightmare/That even the rats and roaches are afraid to go in there/With putrid grease and moldy dough stinking like a gutter/The health inspector gave it a lower rating than the black hole of Calcutta."

200motels snipes at Toro: "He'll go down in history like the Three Stooges/On the Mount Rushmore of monumental scrooges/What he lacks in intelligence he makes up for in thieving greed/He would suck up the world in a black hole of avarice/If he could figure out how to succeed."

Toro's lawyer, Jorge Delgado, told us that he, too, has been on the business end of 200motels' vicious tongue. "It's unfortunate that it's come to this," Delgado said. "I've never in my life received e-mails like this. He even called me an imbecile."

Delgado confirmed that H&H made a "mistake" when it named 200motels as a company officer after he was canned, but claims 200motels has yet to send the proper paperwork to straighten out the tax situation.

"He was dismissed for insubordination," said Delgado, who declined to elaborate. "He knows he can call the office and send us the proper documents to have this matter resolved. But it appears he has a personal vendetta against the president of the company."

Tags:   None

© All rights reserved.

Posted on 2/22/2006 ( Permanent Link )
Read 388 Times
 Send to Friend