WASHINGTON: On Friday night, the press secretary of White House Sarah Huckabee Sanders was kicked out of a US restaurant in Virginia because of her work association with Donald Trump.
Sarah took to Twitter Saturday night, complaining about the ill-behavior of a restaurant’s owner in Virginia who asked her party of seven to leave because she works for US President Donald Trump.
“Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left,” she tweeted.
“Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so,” Sanders added.
Prior to Sarah’s tweet, a person who claimed to be a waiter at the said eatery, Jaike Foley-Schultz, wrote on his Facebook profile “just served Sarah huckabee sanders for a total of 2 minutes before my owner kicked her out along with 7 of her other family members”.
The Facebook post was taken down later but a screenshot of it was taken right in time by Clean Virginia executive director Brennan Gilmore which he shared on the Twitter.
The screenshots shared by Gilmore shows that the White House press secretary was 86ed — a code word in the restaurant services to indicate table eviction.
Stephanie Wilkinson, the restaurant’s owner, justified her decision in a conversation with the Washington Post.
Sanders, she said, served an “inhumane and unethical” administration and considering that her 7,000-strong town of Lexington had voted against Trump, it felt to her “like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals”.
Wilkinson informed the Post that several of her employees were gay and were aware that the White House spokesperson sided with Trump’s wish to ban transgender people from entering the US military.
So, after consulting her staff, the owner took Sanders aside and asked her to leave.
“I’m not a huge fan of confrontation,” Ms Wilkinson told, “This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation.”
“I said, ‘I’d like to ask you to leave.’
Following the incident, severe backlash was received on food-reviewing app Yelp about the said restaurant. Trump supporters banged the restaurant in their comments for its intolerant behavior and piled up one-star reviews while others wrote in the favor of restaurant’s owner and gave five-star ratings.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and father of Sanders, commented on eatery’s move as “bigotry”.
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