On September 20, a 10-second video emerged on social media platform in which staff of a restaurant named Aquila in Delhi was seen stopping a woman identified as Anita Choudhary from entering as she was wearing a saree. The staff member in the video was seen saying, “saree is not a smart casual” dress.
The footage drew strong criticism from across sections, and the restaurant started to get negative reviews on all platforms. On the other hand, some netizens stood by the restaurant and said being a private entity, they have the right to admission on their premises. The incident took place on the night of September 19.
The incident triggered a wide social media debate, where many people denounced the restaurant for its colonial mentality and denying entry to a patron wearing Saree. Aquila is located in Delhi’s upscale Khel Gaon Marg. After Wednesday’s social media buzz, it started receiving a barrage of negative reviews on food delivery platforms.
Later on Wednesday, Aquila issued a statement on its Instagram profile. In the statement, the restaurant said that the 10-second video is just a snippet of what had happened on the day of the incident. They also published a couple of videos to show their side of the story.
In one of the videos, the patron who claimed she was stopped from entering the restaurant because of saree as attire was seen slapping one of the staff members of the restaurant.
The restaurant said that the excuse their staff member gave for not allowing them to enter was not in sync with the restaurant’s policies. However, they could not have allowed someone on the premises who had allegedly assaulted a staff member. The statement reads, “To all our Dear Stakeholders, We chose to stay silent till now and have been patiently watching the situation related to the incident that took place at Aquila on September 19 unfold.
At Aquila, we believe in honouring our Indian community and have always welcomed our guests in all dress codes, from modern to traditional. Currently, a 10-second clip has been circulating in the media showing only a small snippet of what happened during a period of 1 hour here on Sunday.
A guest visited the restaurant and was politely requested to wait at the gate, as there was no reservation under her name. However, while we discussed internally where we could seat them, the guest entered the restaurant and began to fight and abuse our staff. What unfolded after was beyond our imagination, with the guest slapping our manager, as you can see in the CCTV video footage attached in our post above.
We believe in utmost transparency and are hence attaching snippets of people who have visited our restaurant in a traditional dress code previously. To tackle the situation and request the guest to leave, one of our gate managers made a statement on sarees not being a part of our smart casual dress code and our whole team apologies for the same.
Aquila is a home-grown brand, and each member of the team stands tall as a proud Indian. Our gate managers statement in no way is a representation of the entire teams view on the dress code. Nowhere in our company policy does it say that we will refuse entry to anybody in ethnic wear.
While we have all the right to take grated steps for the violence by the guest against our staff, we have chosen to maintain peace so far, but in accordance with our policy of maintaining transparency with our stakeholders, we are now issuing this statement.”
The restaurant stated that the 10-second clip where a staffer was seen saying Saree is not smart casual wear, does not reflect the establishment’s policy as they have multiple instances of Saree-wearing guests being welcomed. They stated that the guests in the video had created a nuisance after being told that no reservation was available and as seen in the CCTV footage, had even slapped the manager.
Counter statement by the patron
A Twitter user named aryaminii, has claimed that the lady in the saree was her mother. She claimed that her mother had only pushed the staff members and not ‘slapped’. She had also acknowledged that they had arrived late, past their reservation time and were told that no seats were available. She also alleged that her mother was confronted by ‘bouncers’ and was misbehaved with by staff.
https://twitter.com/aryaminii/status/1440691814168596484?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwBoth restaurant and the family are getting support and hate at the same time on social media platforms.