Detroit restaurant fires employee after video posted online calls customer racial, homophobic slurs

Owners' son posts vulgar video mocking customer on personal Instagram page

An employee of Vegginini's Cafe was fired Jan. 5, 2019 after he posted a video on his personal Instagram page mocking a customer.

DETROIT – An employee of Vegginini's Cafe was fired Sunday after he posted a video on his personal Instagram page Friday night mocking a customer.

The employee is the son of the restaurant owners and also ran Vegginini's social media pages.

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The former employee's personal Instagram page has since gone private. It is unknown if the video is still up.

The video shows a couple sitting at a table as the person shooting the video makes racial and homophobic slurs about the customers.

"Look at this f----- a-- n----- right here," the employee said in the video, laughing. "Look at this ugly a-- n----- right here."

On Sunday morning, Vegginini's posted on their official Facebook page that they let the employee go, calling the comments horrible.

"Yes, he is the son of the owners, but that does not excuse him of responsibility nor accountability," the Facebook post read.

Another post by the restaurant asked for the person disrespected to contact them so the owners can apologize personally.

The victim in the video said they would not be returning to the restaurant. 

In a post on Facebook, the subject in the video detailed the couple's experience at the restaurant. The couple alleges they felt uncomfortable as soon as they entered and were then treated poorly by all staff, including the owner, who reportedly kept her distance and wouldn't look at them as she spoke.

"It is an invasion of privacy to have a video taken of me without my consent," the victim's Facebook post read. "Especially one as malicious as this."

Former Gov. Rick Snyder signed House Bill 5017 before leaving office, making cyberbullying illegal in Michigan. The law goes into effect in March.

RELATED: Online bullying becomes illegal in Michigan starting March

"Hopefully some positivity will come about through this," the Facebook post concludes. "Just be kinder to your fellow humans. It really ain't that hard."


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