Autistic boy assaulted by waitress
Here's the story as told by the child's father:
We had to wait about 15 min. to order, and the waitress seemed stressed. It was David's turn to order... he was slow to make up his mind while ordering, and grumpy. Not yelling or anything himself, just cranky and repetitive (about not wanting ranchero sauce on his omelet, said 4-5 times). The waitress took this somewhat uncouth behavior as directed at her, and she suddenly snapped. She grabbed his shoulder, shook him, and leaned over and started mocking him, yelling his words back directly in his ear. He asked her to stop, and she grabbed his shoulder and then started screaming in his ear. Screaming that she had had enough and didn't have to work with this. And then she let go, stood up, told the table that she would not serve anyone at the table, and stalked away. He hadn't touched her beforehand... he wasn't even making eye contact, he had been looking at the menu.Link via Ballastexistenz
We all looked at each other, in shock. After a pause, I got up and went to the manager, behind the register. I politely explained that I had an autistic son, that sometimes he needed a bit of extra time or patence, and did not read body language well. And that his waitress had abused him and refused to serve our table, and that that was unacceptable. I wanted an apology and a different server. But the manager backed up the waitress. He said that she was right, and that if my son was "going to be too much trouble" then we should not let him order for himself in restaurants. That it was our fault for having a child that needed patience or hesitated while ordering, and so we should have ordered for him. And that our party should leave.
7 comments:
well... how shall i start...even if the waitress was having a bad day is it not the customer always right? and should it not that she should of taken the extra moment or two for the customer to order? wouldn't you think that would be the sign of a "good" waitress? I am not one very well educated on autisum but would one think that one might chaulk some of the outward clues that they show one might chaulk up to just being odd in personality? besides the waitress should of had a talking too by the manager of the establishment.
Have to agree with anonymous on this one. Autistic or otherwise, the customer is always right, or is that too old fashioned?
Cheers
http://whitterer-autism.blogspot.com
I agree. Autism gives no one, even a waitress having a bad day, an excuse for violent behavior. Grabbing someone by the shoulder, screaming into his ear, mocking him! Intolerable!
Janet
It is also called ABUSE and can be experienced by any living thing. Someone should have called the police and filed charges. Or better yet, just put "them" all in an institution so that "they" don't bother the normal people.
I saw this over at ballastexistenz and was glad she posted it- and am glad you posted it here too. I consider this assault once she touched him - and the manager violated the ADA-so this crosses the line in many ways. It also reminds me of going out to eat years ago at a restaurant. My friend Cindy with MS in a wheelchair (who is now deceased, do I miss her!) who ran an independent living center and I took a number of her clients out to eat. There were about six of us in wheelchairs and the restaurant refused to serve us, saying there were "too many of us". We tried using humor to diffuse the situation, explaining , etc. This nonsense went on for about five minutes until we called the police who enforced the law, telling the restaurant they couldn't refuse to serve us. The police sat there while we ate. I've had to call the police to be served on two other occasions while traveling with friends with disabilities (refusal to allow guide dog, refusal to allow wheelchairs in). But every time I did that it worked.
You have got to be effing kidding me!! I am livid about this. That waitress is damned lucky that she didn't get a mouth full of knuckle sandwich touching someone's child like that. I'd have given her a nice shiner before I even realized what I'd done as soon as I saw her screaming at my baby. Please, please, please encourage them to press assault charges. This is the sort of behavior that can not be allowed to go unchecked. Is there any way that you can ask him to list the address of the restaurant in question because I would LOVE to write to their parent company about this horrible incident.
I agree this is abuse. I also think the waitress would not have touched an adult. And that disability discrimination was definitely part of the management's actions.
Bint: This was a Mexican restaurant in downtown San Diego called Pokez, and from the comments on the father's LJ page, I gather it's a popular spot.
I think he's given details of what's happened since in the 10 pages of comments at his site, but he's also given this update:
"[updates have been posted subsequently... basically, as of Friday evening, I have talked to the local Autism Society, and their attorney several times, have tried twice to file a police report (only could get an "incident report" from the SDPD), and have sent a letter to the local paper (Union-Tribune)]"
Here's the restaurant website.
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