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'Criminals and Tacos' owner responds to concerns over restaurant's name

Last month, Rutgers students and faculty members voiced concerns about a Sept. 15 article published in The Daily Targum about a new Mexican restaurant opening on Easton Ave., called Criminals and Tacos. Andrew Schiff, the restaurant owner, said in the article that his restaurant would "bring real Mexican food to the East Coast" and the shop's "true flavors" would be "unlike anything this city has seen before." Following the article, two opinion letters were published in The Daily Targum voicing concerns over the name "Criminals and Tacos." One letter, written by Peter Guarnaccia, stated "Given the inflammatory statements of Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates about Mexican immigrants as criminals and undesirables, it seems insensitive, at best, to name a new restaurant in our city this way." Guarnaccia, a professor in the Department of Human Ecology, noted in his letter that New Brunswick is already home to a "wide range of delicious and economical Mexican food along French and Handy streets and Joyce Kilmer Avenue, among others." Schiff's restaurant would not be the first authentic Mexican restaurant in a city whose population is 26 percent Mexican, according to a letter written by Aven La Rosa, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. More recently, a small group of Rutgers faculty, alumni and Highland Park residents also responded by mailing a letter to Schiff via the restaurant’s address on Wednesday, November 4.Nov 11 2015