Restaurant entangled in alleged racial profiling incident
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Atlanta, GA (WGCL) — “It was just so blatant,” Shane Smith said.
Shane Smith told CBS46 last week he experienced something despicable. He and a friend who also happens to be white headed to La Hacienda in midtown Atlanta for a bite to eat.
“The table behind us there were three black gentlemen,” Smith explained.
The two tables shared a few stories and a few laughs. Later, when Smith’s new friends were preparing to leave they noticed something odd on their bill.
“One of the guys calls out holding the bill and says ‘hey did you add auto gratuity to this?’ He’s asking the server and the server goes yeah, yeah we add that to everybody’s bill,” Smith explained.
The auto gratuity was 20 percent and the server refused to take it off. Moments later the same server dropped off the bill to Smith’s table. Something was different. There was no auto gratuity.
“So I looked at the server and said do you guys add auto gratuity to everyone’s bill, and he goes no we don’t, he winks at me and says no not everybody’s bill just some people. Then he nods over to the black people,” Smith said.
Gabe Magana is one of the owners of La Hacienda. Magana said when he confronted the server he immediately quit. He adds, when the three black customers who were victimized return to the restaurant, they’ll have a few things waiting on them.
“Definitely a gift card and an apology, and I know that’s the least I can do for what happened,” Magana explained.
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