A Restaurant Asked Cops To Stop Eating There Because Their Presence Makes Customers Uncomfortable
Fox News – The sheriff of a county about 70 miles north of Seattle says a restaurant owner has asked that law enforcement no longer dine there.
Skagit County Sheriff Will Reichardt said on Facebook that after four deputies finished lunch at Lucky’s Teriyaki in Sedro-Woolley Thursday, the owner asked them not to eat there anymore.
Reichardt says the deputies were told that customers didn’t like law enforcement there. The sheriff says his chief deputy called the owner later Thursday and says the request was confirmed along with a request to spread the word among other law enforcement agencies.
The Sedro-Woolley Police Department said on Facebook it’s disappointed but they’ll continue to respond to the businesses in any way they request.
This story is going viral and the restaurant has reportedly been getting slammed with calls from angry people and shitty Yelp reviews since reports started to trickle out (which led to Lucky Teriyaki claiming that it was a language barrier-based misunderstanding, the Sheriff’s department adamantly says otherwise). But giving them the benefit of the doubt, it seems like a situation where the Chinese restaurant probably heard from customers who are viewing the world through a very liberal Washington lens that teeters on anti-cop, explained it to the police in a way that justifiably offended them at a time where their profession is being so heavily scrutinized, and now they’ve pissed off everyone and probably ruined their business as a result. And it sucks because it’s like a microcosm of what our country is going through right now. A Chinese food place is not where you’d assume to be a battleground for the unrest between black Americans and police. But they get sucked into it just trying to do the right thing and defend whatever view point and ultimately end up dividing things further for literally no reason at all. Overall it makes me deeply saddened for our country and the dangerously low MSG levels of the hard-working officers in Skagit County.
BUT where there is crisis there is opportunity and I’m an idealist who’s all about healing so let’s bridge the divide. So here’s my big idea: Two weeks from now, Lucky Teriyaki, two tables setup lengthwise filled to the brim with dumplings and generous bowls of Lucky Teriyaki’s trademark Unlucky Teriyaki on the side. On one side, we have concerned local liberal citizens, maybe some BLM folks, bitter Sonics fans, whatever. On the other side, we have…you guessed it…the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office. Everyone wearing shirts saying Lucky Teriyaki’s Big Dumpling Eating Contest on the front, on the back “White and Brown Coming Together Makes for Something So Beautiful” with a picture of a steamed dumpling defiantly being dipped into a receptive pool of sweet brown teriyaki. The two sides eat, they discuss, they heal, they have serious colon issues a few hours later. Lucky Teriyaki goes from a cultural battleground to a neutral zone, a safe place for people to bond over our love of bastardizing other cultures’ individuality in the name of a unified America. Beautiful. Symbolic. Unified.
I’ll accept payment in the form of a giant freeze dried tub filled with pieces of crab rangoon sent to my house. Small price to pay for unity.