The Delhi restaurant, which faced backlash for denying entry to a saree-clad woman, issued a statement on the incident and clarified that the woman was stopped not because of her attire but because she assaulted one of the staff members.
Aquila restaurant that is located in a South Delhi’s mall shared their clarification on the matter on the Instagram account. On the controversy, Aquila said that it is a homegrown brand that believes in honouring the Indian community and has always welcomed its guests in all dress codes from modern to traditional.
The eatery also added that the clip only shows a fraction of part of what really happened that day and does not show the whole story.
“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,” read the statement
The statement also said that the guest under question was asked to wait at the gate of the premises because there were no reservations available at the time. However, the woman entered the facility and started hurling abuses at the staff members and she went on to slap the manager of the restaurant.
“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 as to 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,” read the statement.
Aquila also attached CCTV footage that captured the entire incident with their post.
The restaurant also clarified that the saree statement was made only to combat the situation and request her to leave.
“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,” the statements said.
For the unversed, a video claiming that a woman was denied entry in Aquila restaurant went viral on social media on Tuesday. The clip was posted by ex-journalist Anita Choudhry. She claimed that the staff member told her that she could not enter the premises because she was wearing a saree and it was not a smart-casual under their dress code policy.
Here’s the clip she posted.
The video clip went viral on social media and was reshared by several users including Pune based author Shefali Vaidya. The Aquila restaurant was heavily criticised for the act.
