Emile Wickham said he and his friends were stunned when a waiter at Hong Shing Chinese Restaurant demanded they pay before they were served.
When the group complained, they were told it was policy, according to their testimony.
“I still felt skeptical, so then I approached other tables,” Wickham told CNN. No one else he spoke with had been asked to prepay, he said.
“There was frustration initially. And that frustration turned into a feeling of dejection and sadness,” he said.
The restaurant’s response
Nearly a year after the incident, Wickham, who is originally from Trinidad and Tobago, could not stop thinking about what happened.
As the anniversary approached, he filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal.
The restaurant said it had seen an influx of dine-and-dash incidents, and that it asked customers who weren’t “regulars” to prepay, according to the ruling .
But adjudicator Esi Codjoe said she found no evidence such a policy was real.
