Couple was banned from a restaurant after a dispute. All they wanted was a refund | Opinion
How did a Valentine’s Day dispute over dinner reservations lead to an interracial married couple from Kansas City being banned from the Wandering Vine at The Castle restaurant in Shawnee?
Almost two weeks after Shawnee police responded to a verbal dispute at the restaurant, Michael and Johanna Kelley are still not sure why police issued them trespass orders, which prevent the couple from returning to the restaurant.
After speaking with Michael, restaurant owner Carla Dyer and a police spokeswoman about the incident, it’s still not all that clear to me why law enforcement had to get involved. But here’s what I can conclude: Michael and Johanna deserve their refund, an apology and to have their trespass orders lifted, as the couple has requested.
According to the restaurant owner, the refund is coming. But what about the ban?
On Thursday, Michael told me he spoke with Dyer. He was told that Dyer called Shawnee Police to lift the ban, but nothing about the dispute had been resolved as of this writing.
Progress towards an amicable resolution was encouraging, though.
Based on what I’ve learned, neither of them were violent or threatening in any way. The couple had been in a car wreck about an hour before their Feb. 14 reservation and simply wanted a refund for the meal they had paid for in advance, said Michael, who is Black. At minimum, the couple would have been fine with a new reservation, he said. After they were denied both requests, a verbal dispute with Dyer broke out, so the couple decided to leave.
“We were already waiting for a Lyft outside of the restaurant after the owner refused a refund,” Michael wrote me in a text message. “The first officer shows up, the owner speaks with her, then the officer informs us that we're getting served a trespass order.”
Refund for dinner?
When I asked Dyer about the incident earlier this week in an email, she did not provide much detail about her motive to call police on the couple, who posed no threat. “Our Valentine’s Day dinner is a pre-fixed, pre-paid event,” Dyer wrote. “The policy allows cancellations for a full refund up to one week before the event. The couple involved in the incident in question wanted a refund the day of the event, and regretfully the incident escalated. In respect of the privacy of the guests, we decline to provide any further details.”
To her credit, Dyer did tell me that she had tried to contact the family and that a refund had been initiated.
“While their refund request is outside the policy, we understand there were extenuating circumstances and we have made attempts to get in touch with the couple to see what more we can do for them beyond the refund that has already been initiated,” Dyer wrote.
Michael, a former candidate for Kansas City Council District 5 at-large, said he hadn’t received the money yet, but these types of bank transactions often take time, he said.
I wanted to understand what the escalation was that would cause Dyer to call Shawnee police. In an email, Emily Rittman, public safety information officer, said the call from the restaurant was described only as a verbal dispute. Nothing indicates that Michael and Johanna were violent or threatening in any way.
Shawnee Police are called
According to Rittman, Shawnee Police responded to a report of a verbal disturbance in the 12400 block of Johnson Drive at 5:59 p.m. on Feb. 14.
“It was not reclassified to another type of disturbance,” Rittman wrote.
“When officers arrived, they spoke to two individuals who said they requested a refund from a business,” she wrote. “The reporting party requested that the two individuals be trespassed from the business.”
According to Rittman, when dealing with these sorts of nonviolent dust ups “officers issue trespass orders at the request of a property owner or authorized representative and do so in a non-discretionary capacity,” she wrote in a follow-up email.
Giving trespass orders to an interracial couple who had just been in a car wreck, had already paid for their meal and volunteered to leave the premises was not the best solution. Going forward, Shawnee police must do better to find medium ground without potentially putting people in trouble with the law.
And I cannot let Wandering Vine off the hook either. Whether it was intentional or not, weaponizing the police against a Black man and his wife over such a trivial matter was hardly called for. The outcome of that dynamic usually favors the non-Black calling party, studies have shown. Other studies have found that insensitivity takes a toll on a Black man’s mental and physical health.
Thankfully, things did not escalate that night and the couple was not arrested or worse. We can only hope the Kelley family can properly heal from this unfortunate episode.
Crash hour before reservation
Shortly before the couple’s dinner reservation, they were involved in a collision near 39th and Main streets in Kansas City, according to a copy of a crash report Michael filed with Kansas City police.
I strongly believe the restaurant owners should have shown more compassion during the incident, but it’s encouraging to know that they are at least attempting to make amends.
If being in a Valentine’s Day car wreck wasn’t bad enough, to add insult to injury, Michael and Johanna would have lost close to $325 they paid in advance for the four-course meal, Michael said.
“Less than an hour before our reservation, Johanna and I were involved in a car crash,” Michael wrote in a recent Facebook post. “Thankfully, no one was seriously injured, but we were in no condition to be able to enjoy the reservation.”
According to Michael’s post, he called the restaurant immediately after the accident to request a refund, gift card, or something similar.
“The owner got on and told me no,” Michael wrote. “I asked if there was any way we could reschedule or come back a different night, and the owner again said no, we had to be there that night.”
The couple were in such a rush to get to the restaurant that they didn’t have time to change clothes at home, Michael wrote. They ordered a ride and stopped at home to grab clothes before heading to Shawnee.
“Johanna had to change in the backseat of the Lyft we took and I changed at the restaurant bathroom,” he wrote.
While there, the couple were escorted to a table on the second floor, according to Michael.
“When the first course came out, I tried to eat something, but it quickly became clear that neither of us were in the headspace to enjoy our dinner,” Michael wrote. “We were both still in shock from the crash. Johanna asked to speak to the owner once more because she was feeling nauseous and concussed. When the owner arrived, I explained that we weren’t in a good space to enjoy the food and asked one more time for a refund.”
At that point, Michael claims Dyer, the owner, got in his face and began berating him about their refund policy.
“Instead of working toward a solution, Carla came to our table and yelled directly in my husband’s face,” Johanna wrote in a separate Facebook post. “My husband is Black, Carla is white. We decided to leave. The only disruption was caused by her. There was no safety concern, no unpaid bill. Yet she followed us outside and called the police. Calling police on a Black man who has paid in full and is choosing to leave is not a neutral act. It carries weight and it escalates risk. It is intimidation.”
In her post, Johanna added: “If this is how ownership handles a couple who experienced a car wreck an hour before dinner, imagine how they handle anything else.”
Footage of dispute
Johanna recorded video of portions of the Valentine’s Day kerfuffle. I can’t say for sure what happened before she started recording.
“This is absolutely wild,” Johanna said after the couple gave their identification to an officer on the scene. “We aren’t the kind of people that complain at restaurants. We’re really not.”
Michael said Dyer’s actions that day felt discriminatory to him.
“It was insulting enough that the owner refused to offer a refund or allow us to come back another night,” Michael wrote on Facebook. “It felt racist for the owner to call the police on us when we had done nothing wrong and were actively leaving the restaurant.”
I asked Dyer directly about his claims of discriminatory behavior, but she did not comment.
In the video, the couple can be heard saying they would not patronize Wandering Vine again and that’s their right. But having police issue trespass orders when they did nothing legally wrong is nowhere remotely close to being fair.
I remain cautiously optimistic that all parties involved will sit down and peacefully resolve the issue. The refund is a good first step.
