A pregnant mother, Charisha Gobin, who is expecting twins, has accused a restaurant of discrimnating against her because her belly was showing. She told a local news station KIRO that on Sunday, she wore a black crop top with the word “Weirdo” across the front with a long white skirt to Buzz Inn Steakhouse in Marysville. Gobin said that after she was seated, a waitress walked up to her and recited the restaurant’s dress code. She said:
“The waitress/bartender stopped us and said, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t be here in that shirt’,” she explained. I said, ‘Are you being serious with me right now?’ And she said, ‘Yep, you can’t be here’.”
The waitress said the restaurant has a “no shoes, no shirt, no service” policy, and that anyone in a crop top, whether pregnant or not, would have been asked to cover up. Gobin, who is seven and a half months pregnant with a boy and a girl, said that she followed the restaurant’s rules by wearing a shirt with sleeves.
“I didn’t even have cleavage showing,” she said. She also said she felt body-shamed because her “belly was bigger and sticking out.”
Gobin posted a photo of herself in her “offending” attire outside the restaurant on Facebook. Adding that she was “livid” and wasn’t going to stick around for an explanation. In a statement, the restaurant apologized and said it would educate its staff on how not to “overly enforce” the rule, which it said is “intended to make all guests feel comfortable.” The statement reads:
“Our apologies for the misunderstanding. The server in question has been with our company and a great employee for almost 20 years and was trying to use her best judgement [sic] and by no means was trying to be demeaning to the guest again our sincere apology for misunderstanding”.
However, Gobin says the restaurant has lost a customer because she would never go back there. Her attire caused mixed reactions on social media, with some slamming the restaurant for being ‘discrimnatory’ while others praised the restaurant for keeping their policy and protecting other customers who were there to eat.