Blind man felt 'less than human' and told to 'leave' pub in guide dog row

Daily Mirror

a day ago

Wayne Pugh, 42, who is blind and has a guide dog, has vowed never to step foot in the Greene King pub in Stoke-on-Trent again after being ejected following a row over his table
A blind man has said he felt 'less than human' after being kicked out of a Greene King pub when his family complained about how his guide dog was treated.
Wayne Pugh has vowed never to step foot in the pub again after a disagreement with staff saw him ejected from the premises. The 42-year-old had visited The Chatterley Whitfield in Stoke-on-Trent on Saturday with his brother and their parents for an early Father's Day meal, where they had pre-booked a table to make room for his guide dog. But upon arrival, the family were shown to the bar area, where the dog only had room to lay down in the busy walkway.
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Wayne, of Meir, told Stoke-on-Trent Live: "We'd asked for a certain table so my guide dog would have space. Instead, they shoved us in the bar area. Nobody else was eating there. It was just me, my parents and my brother. It seemed obvious to me what had happened, they had a big booking of 30 so they didn't have room... My guide dog had to lie in the busy walkway, so my brother had to step over her to get to the bar.
As his mother and brother were at the bar waiting to place an order, they began discussing whether they should leave a Google review about their experiences - and Wayne says this conversation was overheard by a member of staff, who promptly told them to leave.
He recalled: "They told us to 'get out' and said we 'weren't welcome'." Wayne said that as he was leaving, he was approached by another customer, who began "shouting and swearing" at him while asking why he was "causing trouble".
Charity worker Wayne says a member of staff was standing nearby, and seemed to remark that Wayne should be able to "clearly see" they were busy.
Sharing his frustration with how he was treated, he said: "It made me feel worthless. I couldn't see how many people were in there. I didn't know how many people were looking at me... That's why I had to tell people about it. Because it cut deep; it was really raw.
"I want everyone to understand what disabled people - not just blind people - go through every day of the week. It doesn't matter if you're just walking into a shop, going to the cinema, or visiting the bank. Everywhere you go, you get grief.
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"Truthfully, society should change and stop this. All I want the world to do is to be fair to one another. Why can't we just treat each other with some civility? It's never going to happen, I know that. Changing everyone's mindset is too big of a challenge. But everyone wants to be treated right, so why can't they treat others right?"
Wayne has now vowed to "never set foot back in that place again" after being left "humiliated" - and said he had initially urged the rest of his family to stay when they suggested leaving following the change of table.
Greene King has launched a full investigation. It stresses that specific table requests cannot be guaranteed.
A Chatterley Whitfield spokesman said: 'As an inclusive business we want everyone to feel safe and welcome in our pub. We recognise that on this occasion that the guest felt let down, and we apologise for that.
"We believe that this is an isolated incident and we have launched a full investigation into what went wrong. We'll take learnings from this to refresh our training to support the pub team on site to make sure they are welcoming to all our customers and their requirements.'