A McDonald's owner is defending how his employees treated an elderly woman, after a video of them kicking her out of the store went viral.
Josh Nunez started filming at a Lexington, Kentucky, McDonald's Wednesday when he saw staff telling an older woman in the store that she had to leave the restaurant.
"I sat there about 20 minutes into my meal, and I see two people tell this elderly woman that it is time for her to go. They said they will call the health department on her and walked away and started laughing at her."
Nunez said the employees were saying the woman smelled, however she was sitting near the restroom, which he said was smelling "foul" that day.
"Then the bigger guy who you see in the video comes out later and tells the woman it is time for her to go. She says, ‘I will leave after I finish my coffee.’ He says there’s a 30 minute limit. The lady looks up, almost looking around like she’s embarrassed.”
Nunez said he told the employees that they should be ashamed of themselves, and then he was told to leave, too. He was so incensed that he reported the incident to McDonald's corporate department. Since posting video of the incident to Facebook it has had more than one million views.
The McDonald's store owner told NBC affiliate WLEX that it reviewed the incident and concluded that their employees made the "appropriate decision."
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"In this instance, the guest had been inciting customer complaints for multiple hours; therefore, the customer was asked to leave," it said. "Our organization prioritizes the safety of all our customers and we are committed to the community we serve.”
WLEX reported that the McDonald's owner added that while the woman did buy food, customers were complaining that she was loud, obnoxious and bothering them. They said she had been in the store 2.5 hours when she was confronted, and claimed that before that she had slept in the lobby and soiled herself.
