KITCHEN – Waterloo Regional Police are investigating after a video of a man and his dog being forcibly removed from a local restaurant was shared widely online.
In the video, the man is heard saying that the dog is his service animal.
On Wednesday night, police attended Milton’s Grill & Bar on King Street East in Kitchener in response to the incident.
The video lasts 4:30 minutes and shows a man confronted by two other men telling him to leave. On occasion, men are seen grabbing it and even dragging it by the feet. His dog was largely kept out of the frame.
“I have done nothing wrong,” the man is heard saying in the video.
“Yes you have. You are disrupting my business”, one of the men replied. “You are trespassing.”
People can be heard in the background asking the men to stop playing it. “Just leave him alone.”
It is unclear what happened between the two parties prior to the start of this video. The Record has reached out to family members of the man who was told to leave, but has received no response.
A Record reporter walked into the restaurant to get comments from the owners, but a person working behind the bar said the owner was not speaking to reporters.
He said the restaurant disconnected its phone service due to the number of calls it was receiving. The Miltonsrestaurant.ca website was also suspended Thursday afternoon.
As of 2 p.m. Thursday, the video has been shared more than 8,000 times on Facebook and has received more than 4,500 comments. Most of those comments express dislike of the restaurant.
Police said officers received a report of a disturbance at the restaurant at 6:40 p.m. Police said they are aware of the video and are investigating the circumstances surrounding it. No additional details have been provided.
Stacey Disch went to Milton’s on Thursday afternoon to express her concern and disgust with the owner. She said she promoted the business for the past few years and knows the owner eats there so often. She was incredulous when she saw the video.
“We support him throughout the pandemic,” he said, adding that he needs to publicly apologize before she returns.
Sarah Hamilton and her friend Alexandra Bower also came to the restaurant carrying large signs to express their anger after watching the video. Hamilton said the man in the video has been identified as having autism.
“I was enraged. It really hurt, ”said Hamilton. He has a 12-year-old son who has autism and said the way the man with the service dog was treated in the video was very concerning.
“It makes me think about my son, and what could happen and how he can’t even be sure to walk into a restaurant.”
The two walked around the building holding their signs in silent protest, making sure not to step on the property.
He said more training and education is needed on how to treat people with autism or any other disability. Training should be mandatory for those who work directly with the public, he said.
Bower said it’s unclear what happened before the video began, but there was no reason for staff to physically grab the man the way they did, especially without knowing if the man had any kind of disability.
“They could have called the police. He didn’t have to scale the way he did, ”he said.
Others have reported to the restaurant parking lot, just to see the place in person. One couple said they planned to call to order food and not pick it up. On social media, people encourage others to leave negative comments.
On Yelp, at 3:30 pm, the restaurant had 81 reviews. Of them, 58 of them were posted after Wednesday night.
More to come.
Chris Seto is a reporter for The Record in the Waterloo region. Contact him by email: [email protected]
Reference-www.thestar.com