Glasgow UK – A mother of autistic triplets has blasted the Griffin Pub in Glasgow, UK for what she calls blatant discrimination against her three sons.
Tracy Steell, 46, was taking the 19 year old triplets, Bobby, Stuart and Glen, to see Aladdin at a nearby theatre for a Christmas treat, which also included dinner before the show.
She asked for a table in the dining area, but was offered one at the bar, and when they had been waiting for a table to be cleared Bobby became vocal. A waitress turned to Tracy and said that they should have warned the pub that they were bringing in someone ‘like that’.
Tracy said:
“I was stunned and very angry.
“Bobby is more obviously autistic than his brothers and I was so angry that the waitress would focus on him.
“It was humiliating and I think it was clearly discriminatory.”
The family ate elsewhere and Tracy posted a comment on Trip Advisor to which the PR for the company Robert Mullen replied:
“Whilst trying to rid myself of my ignorance about autism, I read this on the autism research website – ‘a person with autism may find certain background sounds, which other people ignore or block out, unbearably loud or distracting.’
“It’s The Griffin at 6pm on a Friday in December? Poor lad.”
Robert MacBean, policy and campaigns officer for NAS Scotland, said:
“As the challenges faced by people with autism every day is becoming more recognised, they are starting to be more welcomed into their communities.
“Sadly this isn’t the case everywhere.
“We would encourage The Griffin to work with us to increase staff and management awareness of autism.”