13 January,2017 07:00 AM IST | | Vijay Kumar Yadav
Altercation over service charge payment between staff of a restaurant chain in Mumbai and a female customer takes an ugly turn after woman tweets to police that she was abused and mentally harassed
Row over service charge: Woman claims Mumbai restaurant staff humiliated and abused her
An altercation over service charge between the staff of a restaurant chain and a female customer took an ugly turn when the woman took to Twitter to allege that she had been misbehaved with, abused and mentally harassed. Later, she also tweeted to the police about the alleged harassment. The incident comes after the department of consumer affairs had announced that service charge billed by restaurants are optional and the customers can choose against paying it.
Row over service charge
The incident came to light yesterday after Chandrima Majumdar tweeted about her humiliating experience at the American and Mexican restaurant Chili's in Inorbit Mall, Malad.
In the tweet, Majumdar had said that the manager of the restaurant, Nishant Dholakia, had broken into an argument after she questioned him about illegally imposing service charge. The spat got ugly when he started behaving rudely and abusing her, Majumdar alleged.
When mid-day contacted Majumdar, she said, "My siblings and I had gone for lunch at Chili's. When we received the bill, we realised that we had been charged R491 as service charge. When I questioned the manager, he had a huge argument with me. He questioned my character, and said I was drunk."
Shocked with the attack, Majumdar dialed 103 for police help. However, she got no response. She then tweeted to the Mumbai police. "@MumbaiPolice got abused and verbally assaulted by a restaurant manager in Chilis, Inorbit Mall, Malad yesterday and called police for help," she wrote.
No cops for two hours
The woman also complained of the casual approach of the police towards her complaint. In the tweet she said that she had to wait for over two hours for help. "How will women feel safe in Mumbai anymore? We are unsafe even in a mall. Men get away with harassment so easily because the police don't come to help women. Very very sad! Shame!," she wrote.
The city police eventually reached out to her and directly messaged her on Twitter, asking her to share more details of the case. While Majumdar claims to have responded to the direct message, a cop from Mumbai police's Twitter team told mid-day, "She did not reply to the direct message and had not sent any details of the incident."
Restaurant apologises
Meanwhile, the restaurant took the matter seriously and replying to Majumdar's adverse feedback on Twitter, Chili's through its handle @ChilisSupport replied, "Chandrima, we're so sorry our manager has let you down!" An email to the restaurant for its version went unanswered.
