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Tasteless bickering

Just because you’re in jail, doesn’t mean you have bad taste…buds.

Just because you’re in jail, doesn’t mean you have bad taste…buds.

By now, the jailhouse protest against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s lousy victuals — grub, food … comida — is long over. After a while, no matter how hard it is to swallow, you gotta eat.

Sure, Arpaio’s food tastes and looks awful. He admits it. In fact, he likes it that way. After all, he can order take out.

But as local columnist Ed Montini, a long-time critic of the sheriff pointed out, Arpaio has a gastronomic gripe to make. As it happens, District 5 County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, an arch nemesis of the sheriff, has food troubles of her own.

“She’s complaining about our food (in the jails) and she can’t even keep her restaurant clean,” Montini quoted Arpaio, referring to health inspection violations at the supervisor’s South Phoenix eatery, El Portal, which she co-owns with her husband, Earl.

On the other hand, we at LPM have also thought the food was pretty tasty at El Portal.

Maybe that’s just the price we pay for freedom.

•  •  •

At press time, yet another Arpaio v. Wilcox flap was looming. Wilcox and her husband are under “criminal investigation” by Sheriff Joe. He’s looking into documents related to a concession lease/contract of the couple’s other restaurant, Chili’s Too, at Sky Harbor International Airport.

“The sheriff has a vendetta,” Wilcox told the Republic, “and he’s just throwing a big net out and he’s doing it to scare me.”