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.

95 points

Some people are just determined to make it difficult to believe humanity is worth saving.

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5 points

Don’t worry…

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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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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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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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-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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3 points

Take a guess…?

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8 points

Obviously he’s faking his condition for attention…
🤦

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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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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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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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63 points

Whats the UKs disability rights laws look like? Hope he takes em to task for their discrimination.

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18 points

On paper, the Equality Act 2010 is great in a bunch of ways. In practice, it’s exceedingly difficult for the average person to pursue justice through it. I imagine the barrier is similar to how it works in the US, except the UK has way less of a litigation culture.

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-16 points

Oh, you can sue for anything in the US and settle out of court. Coffee too hot? Sue. Coffee too cold? Believe it of not, sue.

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33 points

You need to look up the McDonald’s coffee case. The woman got third degree burns and needed skin grafts. She only sued to have her medical bills covered. The judge raised the amount because McDonald’s had been warned about their coffee temperature several times.

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4 points

Hey do you know what enforcement is written into the ADA? We’ll, I’ll just tell you. There isn’t any. It’s up to the individual who is denied access to sue the establishment to get them to comply with a law that’s now 30+ years old.

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3 points

The Americans with Disabilities Act is in a similar spot then. Its a good law, but we’ve been to court multiple times to force them to actually use it. Including going all the way up to the supreme court in the Obergefell decision, and more recently seeking conscent decrees because many states still don’t follow many parts of the ADA, a 30 year old law, but continue to not suffer any punitive actions.

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3 points

There’s a reason this event has made it into the news.

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240 points

He said they had told him that although it was a hate crime, it was “unlikely” officers could pursue it further.

That’s messed up.

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147 points

Welcome to British policing.

“We have determined that this was indeed a hate crime, and therefore we’ll be doing nothing. But if it happens two more times we’ll congratulate them on the hat trick and offer to enroll them in the police academy.”

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33 points

America learned everything we know from England.

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6 points

Like taxation without representation

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10 points

I mean, the sad part is that Britain policing started out with some really good ideas. It’s actually worth reading Robert Peel’s principles of policing by consent sometime. They are an incredible blueprint for how to create a police force that serves the people.

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20 points

Living in Europe I have to constantly remind ppl that American racism is just European racism with better access to guns

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24 points

The paragraph after is golden:

The Met confirmed to the BBC that officers had visited Mr Bromley about the incident and that although no arrests had been made, the force took “reports of hate crime seriously”.

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3 points
*
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