3 Independent Red Onions to Drop Name After Chain Is Penalized Again

Three owners of Red Onion restaurants that are not associated with the chain owned by Ronald Newman said Friday that they would change the names of their establishments to avoid association with the others.

On Thursday, Newman’s International Onion Inc. was ordered to pay $375,000 in penalties and fees for more than two dozen alleged health and fire code violations in its 13 restaurants in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties.

The settlement entered in Orange County Superior Court, under which International Onion and Newman did not admit guilt, was the second six-figure penalty the chain has been forced to pay in recent months. In 1987, the chain reportedly paid $240,000 to six Iranians who sued for discrimination.

In that suit, which was settled without the firm admitting guilt publicly, the Iranians had contended that the restaurant chain had systematically discriminated against customers of Iranian extraction.

Thursday’s settlement followed a yearlong investigation by Orange County health inspectors into the buffet-style meals being served at International Onion outlets.

Despite repeated citations, officials charged that the chain failed to stop practices that could lead to food poisoning, such as allowing raw meat and chicken juices to mix with other foods and failing to keep foods at temperatures that would prevent the spawning of bacteria.

Additionally, authorities charged that numerous fire regulations were violated. Overcrowding of the restaurants was a chronic problem, investigators charged.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Gay Geiser-Sandoval said the penalty was the largest ever assessed in Orange County against a restaurant for health and fire code violations.

Neither Newman nor other International Onion officials returned telephone calls by the Times on Friday. The Carson-based firm’s attorney, Paul Meyer, declined comment on the settlement.

But owners of the three independent Red Onions in Newport Beach, Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes--including the son and daughter-in-law of the restaurant’s founder--said they believe their establishments have been tarnished by association with the Red Onion name.

“I’m very disappointed in what (Newman) has done,” said Palos Verdes Red Onion owner Bart Earle, whose father, Harry Earle, founded the Red Onion chain 39 years ago with a 15-stool eatery in Inglewood.

Through a complicated series of business deals, Newman acquired several Red Onion restaurants and later opened others of his own, Earle said.

Rick Loomis, Bart Earle’s brother-in-law and owner of the Red Onion in Newport Beach, said Newman’s restaurants have departed from the marketing approach established by Harry Earle.

Where the original restaurants catered to families, with Americanized Mexican entrees costing from $6 to $10, Newman’s Red Onions have emphasized drinking and dancing, he said.

Loomis said he began to consider changing the name of his restaurant after the racial discrimination suit against Newman, who has denied his restaurants ever practiced discrimination, was announced last year. The public, he said, has been unable to distinguish the corporate ownership of the various Red Onions.

“We don’t discriminate. If you’re black or Iranian or whatever, your money’s green,” he said.

But since the discrimination suit, “I’ve had people come in testing us to see if we’d throw them out,” he said.

“We were just about ready to change our name with that, and this (latest settlement) is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Loomis said. “I can’t afford to be affiliated with him.”

Loomis said he would probably change the name of his restaurant to Panama Joe’s, which is the name of another Mexican-style restaurant he operates in Long Beach’s Belmont Shore.

Loomis’ sister, Darrien Earle, who owns the Red Onion in Manhattan Beach, said she intended to change the name of her restaurant to Panama Red’s, which is the name of a Mexican restaurant she owns in Brentwood.

And Bart Earle said he would try to commemorate his father’s legacy as a restaurateur by renaming his establishment after Harry Earle’s first eatery, Cafe El Rae, founded in 1941.

“That’s Earle spelled backwards,” he said.