Same-sex couple allegedly kicked out of roller skating rink for kissing
A same-sex couple have alleged they were asked to leave a venue on the New South Wales south coast for kissing in front of an offended parent.
Maddie Dellosa and Amy Hudson were on a date at the Oat Flats Roller Skating Rink on Friday night.
They said that after they exchanged “a few pecks” and “hands that didn’t go anywhere other than each other’s hand or face or back”, they were approached by a manager, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported.
“I was going to the toilet and [Amy] was going to the car,” said Dellosa.
“We pecked on the lips and I turned around and saw the manager coming towards me.
“He said, ‘Ladies, I’m going to have to ask you to stop that.’
“I felt my blood boil. He said he’d had a complaint from a parent that it wasn’t appropriate in front of children.
“He said, ‘I don’t care if boys kiss boys or whatever, it’s just not tolerated here, it’s a family venue’.
“That was when Amy grabbed my face and kissed me on the lips.
“He said, ‘Right, now I’m going to have to ask you to leave’.”
Dellosa said that the couple became angry after the confrontation, throwing their hire skates in the bin and swearing before they left.
“I said ‘F you’ three times to him, with tears streaming down my face, shaking in embarrassment and anger,” she said.
“The sense of inequality really hit me.”
Dellosa and Hudson left negative reviews of the venue on Facebook after the incident, and by Monday the roller rink had shut down.
The physical venue and website are marked “permanently closed”, with management claiming they feared for staff safety after receiving a number of threats.
Dellosa spoke out against those who had made threatening phone calls and online messages to the business.
“I don’t think that’s right,” she said.
“I’m really angry at whoever did that. It’s not how I wanted the situation handled.
“I never suggested anyone do that, I simply opened up and told people of my experience.”
The roller rink’s owners have declined to comment on the incident.
I guess the bit I don’t get is I’m Gen-X, I grew up before social media, why not just put in a complaint without going public?
Not everything has to be a grab for attention and perhaps you do less justice to your cause when you forego your rights to proper justice in a proper commission instead of winning the public opinion war.
Millennials are too keen to punish via social media and too dumb to establish a legal precedent. It helps nobody at all in the long run when it could actually help many if they did anything with actual meaning like establish legal precedents.