New Delhi: Team India superstar Virat Kohli’s restaurant chain ‘One8 Commune’ got embroiled in a controversy after a serious allegation was levelled against it on Monday.
LGBTQIA+ activism group ‘Yes, We Exist’ accused the restaurant of discriminating against the community.
In an elaborate post shared on Instagram, yesweexistindia expressed doubts whether Kohli was aware that his restaurant “@one8.commune in Pune discriminates against LGBTQIA+ guests. The other branches too have a similar policy. This is unexpected and unacceptable. Hope you make necessary changes asap. @deepigoyal @zomato – either do a better job at sensitising restaurants or stop providing your platform to businesses that discriminate. Often it’s the high-end restaurants that practise such discriminatory policies; the ones that you most likely get large sums of ad money from. This needs to end.”
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They also alleged the restaurant only allowed entry to “cisgender heterosexual couples or groups of cisgender women.” According to the post, the Pune branch, when contacted, said, “Gay couples or a group of gay men not allowed; trans women are allowed subject to their clothing (sic).”
The restaurant, however, denied all charges.
“We don’t do any discrimination on the basis of gender,” Amit Joshi One8 Commune’s Pune branch was quoted as saying by indianexpress.com.
“We have restriction on stag entry which means individual boys are not allowed within the premises. This is only for the safety of the ladies present in the premises. If a group of boys and girls enter together, we definitely allow that,” Joshi said, adding that there are no gender-based restrictions, and gay couples, transgender men will definitely be allowed.
