Hiding Behind The Irish

If you were craving bangers or rashers and you were in the Chicago area, you'd head to Winston's.

Owner Mike Winston not only makes Irish sausages, but he runs a little restaurant that serves up Irish cuisine. His business is located in the south suburbs of Chicago, where the Irish-Americans migrated as the old neighborhoods in the city became integrated.

So when a party booked his place for a lunch and said they were a pro-Irish organization, he thought nothing of it. There are plenty who maintain a link to the auld sod and support one cause or another.

On Saturday, as the Chicago cops were preserving order during the NATO summit, a large gang came into the restaurant and went after the very group that had reserved tables for a meeting.

Was the attack connected to the summit? Were they Occupy protestors creating mayhem?

The attackers planned their moves, but they didn't count on the local police stopping one car-load of attackers and arresting them as they fled the scene.

It turns out that a home grown start-up vigilante group from Indiana carried out the attack that did serious damage to Mike Winston's restaurant business.

The group holding the meeting may not have been pro-Irish, but they say they aren't the least bit racist. The attackers say they are against racism and so they beat the racists. How they found out about the meeting at The Ashford House remains to be explained.

You can argue about the right of an anti-racist to physically attack someone they disagree with, and you can debate the racism of the group involved.

What isn't a matter of debate is the ultimate victim in all this.

Mike Winston is just trying to make a living, catering to those who long for a taste of home or who can't afford to travel but would like to see what Irish food is all about.

He not only has to pay to repair physical damage, but he has to repair his restaurant's reputation. Who wants to go out to eat if they fear they'll be whacked on the head with a baseball bat during the appetizer course?

Stop in if you're anywhere near Tinley Park. Support a local business that was caught in the middle of two gangs of eejits.