Last week, an assistant manager at a Savannah Panera Bread asked Duke to remove Emma’s shoes because they had been “bothering someone” when they squeaked. Even though Duke told the employee that her daughter had to wear the shoes for a medical condition, the assistant manager insisted that the toddler remove the footwear. "We weren't welcome with the shoes. It was very blatant,” Duke said. Duke explained to that Emma has an undiagnosed developmental disorder that prevented her from walking until she was 23-months-old.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that children should be walking on their own by the time they are 18 months. A doctor had prescribed special shoes that give Emma more ankle support and squeak when she walked heel to toe, so she would know she was walking correctly. "It is not good for her to walk without her shoes because her ankles could twist and have all sorts of problems," Duke said. Duke said after the incident, she left the Panera Bread in tears. "It was very hurtful, and I left the store crying, not a very good thing for a mom to feel like her child is being discriminated against," she said.
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Panera told Duke that the employee was new on the job and didn’t know the proper way to address the other customer’s concerns. “As you would expect, Panera Bread does not tolerate discrimination of any kind,” the company said. “The last thing we would want to do is make anyone feel unwelcome. Consistent with this system-wide policy, our franchisee met personally with Ms. Duke to directly hear and address the concerns she has raised. We understand from our franchisee that Ms. Duke has been assured that she and her family are always welcome at Panera and her concerns have been addressed."
2 comments:
They are just simply trying to save their own arse, because they know how people will react if they found out disabled children were being discriminated against. They would lose customers. She should have stood her ground and demanded to speak to the owners right there and then and then she should have turned to the people in the restaurant and asked to speak to the person who complained. In fact the person making the complaint should have been asked to leave. Stay home if the slighted noise bothers you.
The child wasn't "discriminated against", there's no way to tell by looking that the shoes aren't just the squeaky shoes lots of kids wear. Perhaps the child shouldn't have been walking around in the restaurant - that in itself is incredibly annoying. It's clear from the story the kid's feet aren't going to explode without the shoes, this is the ol' let's claim discrimination and get some $$$ if you ask me.
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