A waiter in California has been fired after reportedly asking a group of customers for “proof of residency.”
A waiter in California has been fired after reportedly asking a group of customers for “proof of residency.”
In a March 11 Facebook post about the incident, a woman named Diana Carrillo wrote, “A few friends and I went to Saint Marc's in Huntington Beach today. My sister and my friend were seated first and the waiter asked them for their ‘proof of residency’ when they ordered a drink.”
She continued, “My friend in disbelief repeated what he said and his response was ‘yeah, I need to make sure you're from here before I serve you.’ Not knowing that this happened to them, my friend and I were then seated and he returned to the table and asked us for our 'proof of residency.'"
Carrillo then said that the group spoke with the manager about the waiter’s actions; she added at the end, “I hope this employee is reprimanded for his actions. No establishment should tolerate discriminatory actions from their employees."
Carrillo, whose parents immigrated to the U.S., said to the Orange County Register about her experience, “I feel that’s the direction we’re headed in, given who’s the president. That’s one of the reasons I posted it on social media rather than just dealing with the restaurant.”
Saint Marc has since issued a statement indicating that the waiter has been fired and that the restaurant would donate 10 percent of its weekend sales to a charity chosen by Carrillo, reports KTTV.
A restaurant representative has also indicated that the waiter claims to have made the request jokingly, but Carrillo disagrees, saying he had a “bad vibe.”
