A Baltimore restaurant has been forced to apologize after coming under fire for refusing to serve a Black woman and her son because he was underdressed.
The Video went viral after Marcia Grant shared it on Facebook, showing her nine-year-old son Dallas being turned away at upscale Ouzo Bay restaurant because he was wearing a graphic t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers.
The video shows the manager telling Grant that her son is underdressed and violates the dress code, but then Grant turns the camera to a young white boy who is seen dining at the restaurant wearing a similar outfit as her son.
The manager then tells her that he hadn’t taken a good look at the white boy and that he had on different shorts.
Grant said in her Facebook post, ‘“I have faced racism time and time again, but it’s hard AF, when you have to see your child (9yo) upset because he knows he’s being treated different than a white child!!!”
After the clip went viral, Atlas Restaurant Group, which owns Ouzo Bay, issued a statement Monday, saying it was “incredibly disturbed” by the incident. Atlas also announced that the manager had been placed on indefinite leave.
“This should have never happened,” the company said in its statement. “We sincerely apologize to Marcia Grant, her son & everyone impacted by this painful incident. This situation does not represent who or what Atlas stands for.”
The statement said that the company was going to change its policy immediately so that children under 12 aren’t subject to the dress code. Atlas also said the dress code wasn’t “intended to be discriminatory.”
