7mo ago

Facial disfigurement: 'Restaurant asked me to leave over condition'

www.bbc.com

A man with a facial disfigurement says he was asked to leave a restaurant in south London because staff said he was "scaring the customers".

Oliver Bromley has Neurofibromatosis Type 1, a genetic condition that causes non-cancerous tumours to grow on his nerves.

Speaking to the BBC, he said when he had gone to place an order at a restaurant in Camberwell, staff told him there had been complaints about him.

"It's a horrible thing to happen. I took it very personally on the day," he said.

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7mo ago

Facial disfigurement: 'Restaurant asked me to leave over condition'

www.bbc.com /news/articles/cd7xv7dly0lo

99 comments

He said they had told him that although it was a hate crime, it was "unlikely" officers could pursue it further.
That's messed up.
- Welcome to British policing.
  "We have determined that this was indeed a hate crime, and therefore we'll be doing nothing. But if it happens two more times we'll congratulate them on the hat trick and offer to enroll them in the police academy."
  
  America learned everything we know from England.
- The paragraph after is golden:
  The Met confirmed to the BBC that officers had visited Mr Bromley about the incident and that although no arrests had been made, the force took "reports of hate crime seriously".

I’ll take a restaurant full of disfigured people over 1 misbehaving toddler.
- As a parent of younger kids, we're sorry. We come armed with as many activities as possible and will take our kids outside if they're too excited until food gets to the table. That will help them focus on eating.
  We very rarely went out to eat when they were toddlers due to fear of our kids bothering others and understand that our desire to experience some level of normalcy shouldn't come at the expense of others.
  All that said, if the parents are trying to keep their kids occupied, please extend some grace. Being a parent can be extremely isolating and we're simply trying to pretend like we still get to do normal things once in a while.
  
  This is fine, and we thank you for your efforts.
  What were talking about here is a rogue crotch spawn running around or under tables, occupied or not, and generally acting like they're in their own living room rather than a shared community space.
  Honestly IMO if you can keep them at the table, I can put up with the noise. Sure, it's annoying, but so are kids. It's a package deal. And everyone was a kid at one point in time and therefore has no excuse to complain too loudly. That's reserved for when I have to drag a screeching rug rodent out from under my chair and haul it back to the absentee sperm and egg donors.
  
  If you’re trying, the ire isn’t for you. It’s for the shitty parents that feel entitled to not teach their children to behave, don’t feel it’s their job to or act like they are a victim of a life choice and take it out on the child or others. There are plenty of those type out there and I’m sure you don’t want to be lumped in with those ones, you also don’t have to defend them.
- Plot twist, the restaurant full of disfigured people are toddlers.
  
  😭
- As someone who formerly worked at a restaurant, I agree.
  We were located in a fenced off area owned by the same company that had a string of bars/clubs, so after 8pm only 21+ were allowed in, but on Saturday afternoons the stroller crowd would roll through and let their kids run around making a mess of all the tables.
  I'm not against parents bringing their kids out for a meal, but if they're just sitting there pounding beer after beer and ignoring their chaotic unleashed children then it gets really old really fast.

Then don't look at him? The man was just trying to eat. Poor guy.
- I feel so bad for this guy. Imagine the shit he has to put up with all the time. I used to work with a lady who had a big tumor on her face. She was so sweet, but I'm sure she had to put up with all kinds of horrible shit. I honestly really liked her. I would have asked her out if I hadn't been in a relationship because we got along really well. I don't care if you have a big tumor on your face. I'll get used to it after I've seen you for more than a minute or two.
- Its that simple. I dont have a hard time ignoring other tables at a restaurant unless they are obnoxiously noisy. How about ya cunts just carry on with your lives and be happy that you dont have to live with that.
- It isn't that simple. A worldwide measles outbreak is in the news, as is the fact UK is dealing with a surge in far-right BS. As a layman all I know about measles is it has spots as a glaring symptom and is dangerous for children.
  This dude would have made me worried about a measles exposure, but a simple query assuring the proprietors it was not contagious would have resolved my concern. This dude has my sympathy because this is not the only hassle he has been forced to endure, as if the condition wasn't enough suffering.
  
  This looks nothing at all like measles, to even bother the person enough to ask such a ridiculous question is revolting.
  
  That's not an excuse. No questions were asked, nor were there any follow-ups to clarify what was happening to him. People just didn't want that sight while eating.
  
  LOL this is a pretty common condition. You're projecting your ignorance without taking a moment to look up the wikipedia article on this disease.

I wouldn’t want to look at that while I was eating… SO I WOULD AVOID STARING AT HIM. Complaining about the guy is not the answer. Self control and respect are.
- The article says he thinks there wasn’t enough time for someone to complain, the restaurant staff was using it as an excuse.
  “He said: "After entering I noticed a cash-only sign, so went straight back outside to withdraw my money.
  "I went back into the restaurant to place an order, and they told me to 'please leave', because in their words I was 'scaring the customers', and there had been complaints about me."
  He added: "There had not been enough time between the time I had been there first, and the time I went back, for anyone to have made a complaint about me so obviously the restaurant staff were not happy with the way I looked." “
  
  Yeah, I read the article. I was just imagining a hypothetical situation where he and I were eating in the same restaurant.

I know judging people on their appearances isn't right, and he shouldn't have been kicked out regardless of what he looked like.
... but it doesn't even look that bad? Like, "I've got one eye and a skin condition", is that really what the restaurant is willing to kick people out for?
Hope he gets some sort of justice out of this.

Some people are just determined to make it difficult to believe humanity is worth saving.
- Don't worry...

Whats the UKs disability rights laws look like? Hope he takes em to task for their discrimination.
- On paper, the Equality Act 2010 is great in a bunch of ways. In practice, it's exceedingly difficult for the average person to pursue justice through it. I imagine the barrier is similar to how it works in the US, except the UK has way less of a litigation culture.
  
  The Americans with Disabilities Act is in a similar spot then. Its a good law, but we've been to court multiple times to force them to actually use it. Including going all the way up to the supreme court in the Obergefell decision, and more recently seeking conscent decrees because many states still don't follow many parts of the ADA, a 30 year old law, but continue to not suffer any punitive actions.
  
  Oh, you can sue for anything in the US and settle out of court. Coffee too hot? Sue. Coffee too cold? Believe it of not, sue.
- There's a reason this event has made it into the news.

They don't want to look at that guy's ugly face? I bet it looks nicer than their ugly minds.
- Probably looks better than their ugly faces too.

See, Britain just needs Ugly Laws, like what America had up until 1974! Then they could just have the guy arrested!
In all seriousness what the fuck. What goes through a person’s head that they think treating someone that way is even remotely okay?

It seems that some British hate handicapped/disfigured people. Just read this article about a kid in a wheelchair being excluded from the school photo. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/29/aberdeenshire-pupils-with-complex-needs-erased-from-school-photo
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/04/school-photos-disabled-children
or people complaining about seeing a tv host with a missing arm. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/feb/21/tv-presenter-cerrie-burnell
It's just good old British Classism that never went away.
- Don't all countries have this problem?
  
  To some degree. Never heard of handicapped kids being excluded from school photos in my country though.
  
  Maybe it's just where I was raised, but I don't see this at all in my day to day life in the US. Things have come a very long way.
  I'm sure there are still things that are shitty that I probably wouldn't notice as I'm not in that position... But in general, most people here don't seem to give a shit these days.
  To be clear, I'm not referring to classism. That still exists to a degree, though it's mostly been supplanted by racism.
  
  Oddly enough Australia is one of the most accepting countries I’ve been in when it came to PWD. Elevators for every train platform and if one broke they fixed it straight away. They also didn’t exclude lower income people no where near as much as they do in the US, Canada or UK.
  That said, the way they treat women, First Nations and POC or just about anyone who isn’t australian leaves much room for improvement.
- Wonder if it's got anything to do with thalidomide disfiguration.
- No, fuck off, that's got nothing to do with nationality.
  
  This is just a case of some people being cunts.
  For a community that prides itself on not being reddit, an unfortunate amount of reddits opinions and (lack of) values made it here alright.
  Or maybe that has nothing to do with the community as a whole and is just a case of some people being cunts?
  
  Nah... the british have a propensity for treating different people badly.

That's just horrible. And wtf is this "Yes it's a crime but what can we do?" bullshit. Man I feel sorry for that guy. No body deserves to be treated that way. He just wanted to have a nice night out. Fuck that restaurant.

That's fucked.

He said they had told him that although it was a hate crime, it was "unlikely" officers could pursue it further.
But when someone shop lifts from a corporation, here come the cops running
- Time to lawyer up. Though I don't know how the law works there in Britland.

Fuck that restaurant, everyone is too "ugly" to eat there. I can think of many DC restaurants that would love to serve them.

just... put him on his good side.
/s
- Turn the other cheeks
  
  i mean, that's one solution i guess.

I do feel for the guy, but I also feel bad for the restaurant. It's not an easy position to be in. It seems like a pretty rare condition and it's not like he will be carrying any sort of proof as to what the condition is let alone anyone on staff at the restaurant that could diagnose him or even say if the condition matches what he claims it to be.
If someone walked in with small pox I would hope the restaurant would eject them, but it's not like they would be able to say if it is or isn't small pox. It's a no win situation for both parties involved.

wait, in the article, why is his left eye removed in the first photo and his right eye in the next?
- It looks to me like the first one was taken with the front-facing camera of a phone, and those often have a horizontal flip option
  
  Pocket squares/boutonnieres are pretty much always on the wearer's left-hand side, so that's my guess as well.
- One of them is probably flipped.
  
  Nah, I bet he's faking it. Continuity error
- Obviously he's faking his condition for attention....
  🤦
- Seems like BBC isn't checking their pictures or maybe he chooses which side to pop his eye in each morning
- Take a guess...?
- Lmao most downvoted comment for asking a reasonable question (albeit with a pretty well understood answer). Lemmy truly is reddit 2.0
  
  Were you expecting philosopher kings with a more advanced heuristic than "I don't like this post"? The improvement is decentralization - that doesn't make the users nice or smart.

99 comments