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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Some Utah businesses didn't wait to see how many immigrant workers showed up on Boycott Monday -- they just shut down for the day.
Among them was Wasatch Beers, where owner Greg Schirf said a few of his Latino employees asked if they could take the day off, and he told them, "We'll just take a company holiday. We'll call it 'Latino Appreciation Day."' Schirf estimates about half of his employees are Hispanic.
Mark Alston, owner of the Bayou in Salt Lake City, said he would remain open, but would shut down the kitchen and serve only liquid refreshments.
Alston said he supports his kitchen staff's decision to take the day off. He thought about staffing the kitchen with himself, his wife and other employees, but, "I didn't want to come across as undermining what my employees are trying to do by kind of being a scab to their strike," he said.
Alston said it will be a paid day off for the employees.
Organizers of the national boycott asked students and workers to take the day off as a show of unification in the national debate on immigration reform.
Events planned in Salt Lake City for the day included a Liberty Walk rally and walk at Liberty Park and a candlelight vigil at the state Capitol.
A counter Wake Up America Rally was planned at the City-County Building by the Utah Minuteman Project.
In Ogden, a Rally for Justice was scheduled Monday evening in front of the Federal Building.
In Cache Valley, two major businesses employing large numbers of Latinos said they would close on Monday. They were the E.A. Miller plant in Hyrum and ICON Health and Fitness in Logan.
"We have received feedback from employees both formally -- through requests for time off -- as well as through some informal channels that there was a lot of interest in participating in whatever event might be scheduled," said Sean McHugh, vice president of communications for Swift & Co.
The company also said it would close three other beef plants in the country due to "previously scheduled maintenance activities, general market conditions and advance employee requests for time off."
ICON spokeswoman Colleen Logan said the decision to close for the day was "a business decision that we made that's in the right interest of the entire company to have our full production for the rest of the week."
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
