A New Jersey restaurant employee has been fired after writing a message on a receipt, insulting a police officer, according to the restaurant’s owner.
A photo of the receipt from Romanelli’s Garden Cafe in Galloway from Sunday morning showed the words “cops pigs” and “puercos,” a Spanish word that means “pigs” or “swine” in English, and generated controversy after it went viral on social media, the Daily Mail reported.
Romanelli’s owner, Drew Huggard, issued a statement on the restaurant’s page apologizing for the incident, calling the former employee’s actions “gross and disrespectful”:
“We support our local police department and all forms of law enforcement. I am the owner I have grown up in this town and I have always relied on the local police dept. to keep my self and my family and friends safe,” Huggard wrote in a message on Romanelli’s Facebook page. “We would like to just let let everyone know we do not condone this type of behavior here.”
Huggard clarified that the employee in question was fired from his job in reply to a Facebook user’s comment.
Some Facebook users were satisfied with the restaurant’s response to the incident and felt it did the right thing.
“Excellent! Bad situation and I feel it was handled properly. I understand you can’t control everything, but you handled this with quickly [sic] and with purpose that it will not be tolerated…. by anyone at anytime!” one user wrote.
“I was impressed by your kindness and warmth when we met and chatted a few weeks ago in your restaurant. I’m even more impressed now. Your attitude and actions have encouraged me to visit your establishment more frequently,” another user wrote.
Others, however, derided the restaurant for hiring someone who is anti-police in the first place.
“This business hires thugs who have hate for the Police who protect us,” a user wrote.
“As a wife of a police officer in this town and a frequent customer at your establishment I am just disgusted by this whole incident…And honestly not sure we will be able to excuse it and go back,” one customer wrote.