A waiter has been sacked after demanding “proof of residency” from two women of Latin American origin before serving them at an upmarket Californian restaurant.
Sisters Diana and Brenda Carrillo, who were both born in California but whose mother had moved there from Mexico 40 years ago, had visited the eatery with two other friends.
But they were left furious after the waiter allegedly insisted: “I need to know where you’re from before I serve you.”
Diana Carrillo, 24, said in a Facebook post that she thought he might have been joking at first.
“But he didn’t have a smile,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “There was no indication that he was trying to make a joke or even possibly flirt with us.”
“How many others has he said this too?” she asked on Facebook, in a post which has been shared almost 2,000 times. "No establishment should tolerate discriminatory actions from their employees," she added.
St Marc restaurant, on Huntington Beach, said in since-deleted social media posts that the waiter had been dismissed and “this type of behaviour . . . will not be tolerated”.
Saint Marc's senior director of operations Kent Bearden told the Washington Post the waiter was fired.
"That individual did not treat a table of guests to the expectations that we set forth in that company policy, and that caused him to be terminated," he said.
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