Boy, 4, Thrown Out for Shirt: Restaurant Apologizes for Making Child Adhere to 'Gentlemen's Code'
A 4-year-old boy was asked to leave a restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, simply because he chose to wear a sleeveless shirt. Even though the boy was only 4-years-old, the manager insisted the family leave because he did not meet the "gentlemen's code" required.
According to Lewis Roberts' family, the situation occurred at a restaurant in Atlanta's Phipps Plaza. The boy wore a sleeveless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt, which he adored. Unfortunately, the hostess at the restaurant did not think too highly of it and told the family that they would have to leave because of the restaurant's dress code. When the family asked to speak with the manager, he confirmed that the dress code applied to "gentlemen of all ages" and they were again asked to leave.
"I was very, very upset that my 4-year-old nephew got asked to leave a restaurant, at lunch time in the middle of the day. If we would have thought for a minute that he was inappropriately dressed, we would have gone to a different restaurant to save the embarrassment," Keri Smith, Lewis' aunt, told Fox News.
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After upper management learned of the incident, spokeswoman Amber Stewart issued the following statement:
"Rule does not apply for children and ladies but for gentlemen only. It was an embarrassing mistake on our part. She's a manager-in-training who had a gross misunderstanding of our policy. We apologize and are reaching out to the family," she said.
Lewis' family said that the management team did apologize and they accepted the apology. The family plans to return to the restaurant and have the good time they had originally planned.
This is one of the rare stories of a child being asked to leave a restaurant for wearing an "inappropriate" shirt. Recently, though, children have been asked to leave their schools for wearing shirts with violent images or those that send "violent" or "inciting" messages to their peers.
