A sandwich in hand and a Coke on the bar table. Nothing, it wasn't enough. There was no room for a family with a disabled child in a restaurant in the center of Porto Torres.
“To stay here, you all have to eat a meal,” a restaurant employee reportedly said.
Rita , mother of an autistic child, recounts the negative experience.
"Before going to the bar with my two children, I contacted the place to ask if I could order a sandwich for my seven-year-old son , and the answer was that they didn't take reservations. So once we got there, we asked if we could sit down for a drink, and the waitress agreed. She also allowed us to order a sandwich for my son, including a cover charge, for a whopping €9 ," Rita explains.
The wait is endless; the sandwich arrives with difficulty, but not the drink. "One of the staff had instructed us not to bring us anything to drink. The child was starting to complain, the Coke wasn't arriving, and for my autistic son, hunger and thirst are stimuli that can't be postponed or ignored. At that moment, he wanted the Coke, and we politely asked if we could have it."
The woman began to get so impatient that she got up from her chair and aired her complaints inside the restaurant. "We had noticed that the same rule wasn't being applied at other tables, which made us feel unfairly treated . The owner not only didn't apologize, he addressed us rudely and clearly told us we weren't welcome and that we should leave the restaurant."
After the protest, Coca-Cola arrives. "But no drinks for me and my eldest daughter." Left at the table without being able to satisfy their cravings, the customers sitting at the next table ordered drinks for the abused family.
"I felt very offended and humiliated," Rita said, "especially because my child was the one who suffered the most."
The owner of the restaurant, when contacted, declined to comment on the matter.
