A Texas based pizza chain called “Pizza Patron” recently announced it would start accepting Mexican pesos alongside good old-fashioned American dollars as payment from its customers for a limited time. This apparently didn’t sit too well with some asshats out there as it’s generated no small amount of hate mail and death threats:
“This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico,” one e-mail read. “Quit catering to the ... illegal Mexicans,” another said.
Now you might be wondering why a store would accept pesos in the first place, but consider that 60% of Pizza Patron’s customers are Hispanic and the stores are located mostly in Hispanic communities and it makes quite a bit of sense.
“If people would understand that the majority of our customers are Hispanic, then it might make more sense for a company to sell pizza for pesos,” Gamm said. “It doesn’t make sense in Connecticut. And it doesn’t make sense in North Dakota or in Maine. But it makes perfect sense here in Dallas, in Phoenix, in Denver--areas far from the border that have significant Hispanic populations.”
The company said it has received hundreds of e-mails, some supportive, most critical.
What most folks don’t know is that Pizza Patron is hardly alone in this practice. Quite a few chains including Wal-Mart and H-E-B supermarkets that are located along the American border will accept foreign currency whether it be Mexican pesos or Canadian dollars. It just makes good business sense. Alas for the asshats of the world that doesn’t matter. This is America, dammit! You shouldn’t assume you have the freedom to accept whatever you want for payment here!
Posted on 01/13/2007 at 05:13 PM 
Businesses in border regions or tourist-infested spots all over the world will gladly relieve their marks of coin, regardless of currency. They simply set the exchange rate high enough to turn a small side profit on the trips to the bank.
I’m not an economist, but isn’t it cardinal rule of business that the customer should have be able to pay with the greatest ease?
And there you have it: