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Restaurant asks Trump spokesman Sarah Sanders to leave

This article is more than 12 months old

A Virginia restaurant was inundated with reviews from both ends of the US political spectrum - five-star reviews praising the restaurant's stance and one-star reviews accusing it of "discrimination" - on Saturday after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said its owner asked her to leave.

On Friday, a Facebook user claiming to be a waiter at The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia said he served Ms Sanders "for a total of 2 minutes" before she and her party were asked to leave. His post went viral when a former US diplomat uploaded a screenshot to Twitter with an image of a handwritten note supposedly from the restaurant, which read "86 - Sara Huckabee Sanders".

To "86" someone means to refuse to serve a customer.

"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," Ms Sanders tweeted on Saturday.

"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."

Chef-owner Stephanie Wilkinson said that politics were explosive in her small town, which voted against Mr Trump in a county that did not.

'CRUELEST POLICIES'

Given her own moral position that Ms Sanders serves in an "inhumane and unethical" administration, Ms Wilkinson told The Washington Post she could not accept a defender of the president's "cruelest policies" .

"I'm not a huge fan of confrontation," Ms Wilkinson said. "I have a business, and I want the business to thrive.

"This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals," she said.

The owner said many of her employees were gay and that Ms Sanders had defended Mr Trump's wish to bar transgender people from the armed forces.

And then, she said, she was stunned by Ms Sander's defence of Trump policies leading to migrant children being taken from their parents' care.

"I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation," the owner explained. "I said, 'I'd like to ask you to leave'." - AFP

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