Shelley Sidney, a waitress at restaurant, Antica Posta, was waiting tables when she was given a menu with a swastika drawn on it from one of her guests.
Apparently Sidney, was waiting on a private party at the restaurant where she works in Buckhead—a very affluent neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I get to the last person in the party, and they give me a menu that has a swastika drawn on it,” she told WSB-TV. “It was the most blatantly hateful thing anyone has ever done to [me].”
Sidney immediately showed her boss the menu, but restaurant owner, Marco Betti, told her that the guest has a right to exercise freedom of speech. (Racist slander is not free speech.)
As Sidney continued to wait on the table, she heard them use the n-word, and recalled, “I was really in tears when I was overhearing the conversations, the private conversations of just how horrible black people are, immigrants are, gay people are.”
After that, she told her boss she was done waiting on those people.
The other restaurant staff later discovered that the private party being held in the restaurant, was a speaking event being held by David Irving—a known holocaust denier.
Antica Posta’s attorney, Manny Arora, responded, “You don’t check into people’s backgrounds or their political beliefs before you agree to a reservation.”
This whole incident begs the question—does money bribe racism into elimination?
Restaurants have the right to turn away anyone they do not want in their restaurant, but owner, Marco Betti just turned the other cheek because, what? They were paying good money?
“[Betti] never told them that they had to leave. I think that it’s unacceptable for this to be able to go on. It’s 2017,” Sidney insisted.
Sidney is right. It is absolutely unacceptable to enable such racist behavior.
What is even more unacceptable is restaurant’s response to the incident. Attorney Arora stated that “the group did not cause any disturbances.”
Why does it sound like the restaurant is defending the racist actions of its guests while ignoring the serious concerns and discomfort felt by its employees? Because that is exactly what they did.