The Mets have banned Kosher Sports Inc from selling their glatt kosher hot dogs, burgers, peanuts, pretzels and knishes at their games on Friday night and Saturday home games. Kosher Sports Inc are able to sell their products at other times, but not over the Jewish Sabbath. This move has lost Kosher Sports Inc well over hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The issue? According to papers filed officials were worried that there would be “undermined credibility with Sabbath observing [fans]”. JoK Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff weighed in on whether food prepared on the Sabbath would be kosher or not . “If food is cooked from raw on Shabbat it may not be eaten on Shabbat. Warming food and preparing it is okay when certain precautions are added.”
Kosher Sports Inc hired a renowned law firm to fight this in the courts. Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP have represented Al Gore and also the NFL.
The contract that Kosher Sports Inc has with the ball field does not guarantee sales – over the weekend or any time. However, Kosher Sports Inc claim that they were never told that they couldn’t sell their kosher goods over the Sabbath until after they had signed a ten year contract. Since then, they have stopped making the necessary annual payments to the ball club – a move which could leave them liable for damages.
Judge Jack Weinstein ruled yesterday that the contract that was signed did not give Kosher Sports Inc the right to sell its products at all events during the ten year term of the agreement. His ruling also stated that the terms were laid out in the contract.
We’d like to know what you think – would it bother you if a Kosher vendor sold its kosher products on the Sabbath? Or would that negate its kosher status for you?
I seem to remember some discussion about selling a Jewish business to Gentiles over Shabbat so the business could stay open. Not having a Mashgiach present is another problem. Maybe they could train a gentile to be “watcher”. There has to be a way. Plenty of non-observant Jews and Gentiles prefer kosher meat and I’m sure somewhere in Jewish law there is a way for Kosher Sports not to lose money.
There is a CRC-approved Dunkin Donuts in Chicago that is open on Shabbat. I have always wondered how that is possible – obviously a mashgiach cannot work there on Saturdays – but they must have worked out something. Since non-Jews also enjoy kosher food, there is no good reason why kosher products cannot be sold on Shabbat. However, I would not approve if the owners of Kosher Sports Inc are Jewish and are earning money from their business on Shabbat. That might make me doubt the kashrut of the establishment. Since a mashgiach cannot be present on a Saturday, you would need to trust them.
As a non-religious person, I still enjoy Kosher foods – no matter which day of the week it is. Why should anyone try to impose their beliefs on another’s business?