A man with a facial disfigurement says he was asked to leave a restaurant in south London because staff said he was “scaring the customers”.

Oliver Bromley has Neurofibromatosis Type 1, a genetic condition that causes non-cancerous tumours to grow on his nerves.

Speaking to the BBC, he said when he had gone to place an order at a restaurant in Camberwell, staff told him there had been complaints about him.

“It’s a horrible thing to happen. I took it very personally on the day,” he said.

151 points

I’ll take a restaurant full of disfigured people over 1 misbehaving toddler.

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42 points

As a parent of younger kids, we’re sorry. We come armed with as many activities as possible and will take our kids outside if they’re too excited until food gets to the table. That will help them focus on eating.

We very rarely went out to eat when they were toddlers due to fear of our kids bothering others and understand that our desire to experience some level of normalcy shouldn’t come at the expense of others.

All that said, if the parents are trying to keep their kids occupied, please extend some grace. Being a parent can be extremely isolating and we’re simply trying to pretend like we still get to do normal things once in a while.

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28 points
*

This is fine, and we thank you for your efforts.

What were talking about here is a rogue crotch spawn running around or under tables, occupied or not, and generally acting like they’re in their own living room rather than a shared community space.

Honestly IMO if you can keep them at the table, I can put up with the noise. Sure, it’s annoying, but so are kids. It’s a package deal. And everyone was a kid at one point in time and therefore has no excuse to complain too loudly. That’s reserved for when I have to drag a screeching rug rodent out from under my chair and haul it back to the absentee sperm and egg donors.

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16 points

Haha, our kids do go under our table at times but they know not to go under other people’s tables.

I don’t have much tolerance for absentee parenting either, especially if the kids wind up seeking attention from others, by say going under someone else’s table, because they’re not getting enough attention from their own parents.

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9 points

If you’re trying, the ire isn’t for you. It’s for the shitty parents that feel entitled to not teach their children to behave, don’t feel it’s their job to or act like they are a victim of a life choice and take it out on the child or others. There are plenty of those type out there and I’m sure you don’t want to be lumped in with those ones, you also don’t have to defend them.

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5 points

Plot twist, the restaurant full of disfigured people are toddlers.

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1 point

😭

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4 points

As someone who formerly worked at a restaurant, I agree.

We were located in a fenced off area owned by the same company that had a string of bars/clubs, so after 8pm only 21+ were allowed in, but on Saturday afternoons the stroller crowd would roll through and let their kids run around making a mess of all the tables.

I’m not against parents bringing their kids out for a meal, but if they’re just sitting there pounding beer after beer and ignoring their chaotic unleashed children then it gets really old really fast.

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-24 points

wait, in the article, why is his left eye removed in the first photo and his right eye in the next?

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-12 points

Lmao most downvoted comment for asking a reasonable question (albeit with a pretty well understood answer). Lemmy truly is reddit 2.0

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1 point

Were you expecting philosopher kings with a more advanced heuristic than “I don’t like this post”? The improvement is decentralization - that doesn’t make the users nice or smart.

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-4 points

Well, I agree that the users here aren’t nice or smart. So here we are.

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5 points

Seems like BBC isn’t checking their pictures or maybe he chooses which side to pop his eye in each morning

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3 points

Take a guess…?

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66 points

It looks to me like the first one was taken with the front-facing camera of a phone, and those often have a horizontal flip option

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9 points

Pocket squares/boutonnieres are pretty much always on the wearer’s left-hand side, so that’s my guess as well.

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31 points

One of them is probably flipped.

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29 points

Nah, I bet he’s faking it. Continuity error

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2 points

Crisis actor!

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8 points

Obviously he’s faking his condition for attention…
🤦

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just… put him on his good side.

/s

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1 point

Turn the other cheeks

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i mean, that’s one solution i guess.

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137 points

Then don’t look at him? The man was just trying to eat. Poor guy.

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-53 points

It isn’t that simple. A worldwide measles outbreak is in the news, as is the fact UK is dealing with a surge in far-right BS. As a layman all I know about measles is it has spots as a glaring symptom and is dangerous for children.

This dude would have made me worried about a measles exposure, but a simple query assuring the proprietors it was not contagious would have resolved my concern. This dude has my sympathy because this is not the only hassle he has been forced to endure, as if the condition wasn’t enough suffering.

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15 points

That’s not an excuse. No questions were asked, nor were there any follow-ups to clarify what was happening to him. People just didn’t want that sight while eating.

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-19 points

Didn’t say it was an excuse.

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34 points

This looks nothing at all like measles, to even bother the person enough to ask such a ridiculous question is revolting.

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-24 points

Yes, yes we all know everything you wouldn’t do is repugnant. Must be nice. I am not a doctor, and 99% of the population isn’t either. This could also be that new pox variant gathering steam. Point is, you see something like this reminiscent of a serious and contagious illness, in an eatery, and there are reasonable concerns for the public beyond politeness.

Like, someone walking in to a restaurant coughing like crazy with hollow eyes and pale skin wouldn’t trigger any alarms? Be realistic.

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12 points

LOL this is a pretty common condition. You’re projecting your ignorance without taking a moment to look up the wikipedia article on this disease.

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-21 points
*

Sorry, I’m in the middle of dinner at a nice restaurant. I’m not going to try looking up every known contagion with spots or bumps as a symptom when the person could just do a public courtesy and alleviate everyone’s concerns by just stating “I’m not contagious”.

Edit: better yet, it’d nicer if the world wasn’t full of selfish assholes willing to spread their suffering to others intentionally so we wouldn’t even be worried in the first place.

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3 points

Its that simple. I dont have a hard time ignoring other tables at a restaurant unless they are obnoxiously noisy. How about ya cunts just carry on with your lives and be happy that you dont have to live with that.

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22 points

I feel so bad for this guy. Imagine the shit he has to put up with all the time. I used to work with a lady who had a big tumor on her face. She was so sweet, but I’m sure she had to put up with all kinds of horrible shit. I honestly really liked her. I would have asked her out if I hadn’t been in a relationship because we got along really well. I don’t care if you have a big tumor on your face. I’ll get used to it after I’ve seen you for more than a minute or two.

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34 points
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It seems that some British hate handicapped/disfigured people. Just read this article about a kid in a wheelchair being excluded from the school photo. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/29/aberdeenshire-pupils-with-complex-needs-erased-from-school-photo

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/04/school-photos-disabled-children

or people complaining about seeing a tv host with a missing arm. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/feb/21/tv-presenter-cerrie-burnell

It’s just good old British Classism that never went away.

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-7 points

No, fuck off, that’s got nothing to do with nationality.

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0 points

Nah… the british have a propensity for treating different people badly.

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3 points

Yes, the species is prone to it, it’s a damn shame.

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3 points

This is just a case of some people being cunts.

For a community that prides itself on not being reddit, an unfortunate amount of reddits opinions and (lack of) values made it here alright.

Or maybe that has nothing to do with the community as a whole and is just a case of some people being cunts?

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12 points

Don’t all countries have this problem?

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10 points
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Maybe it’s just where I was raised, but I don’t see this at all in my day to day life in the US. Things have come a very long way.

I’m sure there are still things that are shitty that I probably wouldn’t notice as I’m not in that position… But in general, most people here don’t seem to give a shit these days.

To be clear, I’m not referring to classism. That still exists to a degree, though it’s mostly been supplanted by racism.

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4 points
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We have out problems, but were actually really good about ableism, so silver lining. Still feel for that guy though, hope he gets all the good things he deserves

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4 points

I see people with prosthetic legs all the time at my work (grocery store) and I think nothing more of it than “that guy could do an absolutely dope robot costume for Halloween”

I did see someone with double prosthetic legs and that was cool.

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12 points

To some degree. Never heard of handicapped kids being excluded from school photos in my country though.

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0 points

Never heard of it. It’s difficult to know how much of the difference is the actual occurrence and how much is the reporting of it.

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12 points
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And if you were asked to leave in the US because of a facial disfigurement you could fully expect to have a business closing lawsuit won against you in no time at all. Wa are as litigious AF for better or worse, usually worse.

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2 points
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Oddly enough Australia is one of the most accepting countries I’ve been in when it came to PWD. Elevators for every train platform and if one broke they fixed it straight away. They also didn’t exclude lower income people no where near as much as they do in the US, Canada or UK.

That said, the way they treat women, First Nations and POC or just about anyone who isn’t australian leaves much room for improvement.

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1 point

Wonder if it’s got anything to do with thalidomide disfiguration.

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