Hello, Nurse!

Kerry Howley | December 11, 2006

At Arizona's Heart Attack Grill, servers dressed as nurses serve a "quadruple bypass burger" clearly cooked up to provoke Bloombergian scolds. Any customer who can finish the burger--four half-pound beef patties, cheese, bacon, and all--gets a wheelchair ride to her car at no extra cost. But it's not the food porn that has people upset:

The waitresses wear skimpy, cleavage-baring outfits, high heels and thigh-high stockings -- a male fantasy that some nursing organizations say is an insult to the profession.

"Nurses are the most sexually fantasized-about profession," said Sandy Summers, executive director of the Center for Nursing Advocacy, based in Baltimore. "We're asking people, if they're going to have these fantasies, please don't make it so public. Move these sexual fantasies to other professions."

The most serious complaint [Owner Jon] Basso has faced was made to the Arizona attorney general's office by the state Board of Nursing. In September, the attorney general's office wrote Basso a letter informing him that he is illegally using the word "nurse" at his restaurant and on his Web site. Citing Arizona Statute A.R.S. 32-1636, the attorney general said only someone who has a valid nursing license can use the title "nurse."

Whole thing here.