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FOND DU LAC-a Fond du Lac woman says she was fired from a restaurant for standing up for her beliefs.

Brittany Spencer worked as a waiter at Fat Joe’s bar

“They asked me if I thought it was disgusting and wrong and why we would let someone like that in an institution,” Spencer said. “To which I replied, no, I don’t agree with that and left.

“Ownership on fat Joe says both groups are regulars at the bar. They say they have a handful of high school employees and Saturday was their homecoming. So they had to compensate more servers. With the badgers playing and live bands on the site, they expected it to be very busy.

Spencer says she went to her Manager to ask if someone else could serve the table because she didn’t feel comfortable.

“My Manager basically told me to suck it or go home,” Spencer said. “To which I said, okay. I’ll leave.

“Ted Wallender is one of the owners on fat Joe. He says, despite what has been said, they are obliged to serve all customers.

“We don’t discriminate against anyone,” Wallender said. “If you want to walk in our front door and you want to have our food or drinks, watch TV, watch live music we provide, we are going to serve you the best we can and make you happy by your standards.”

Wallander says that since Spencer refused to serve the table, they sent her home for the night. He says they planned to talk to her the next day about what happened.

However, Spencer took to Facebook to sound off about what happened. The post had over a dozen comments and the next day, she was told she had been fired. So she encouraged her followers to leave negative feedback on Fat Joe’s Facebook page.

“If you think it was wrong, leave a review on your business’s Facebook page,” Spencer said. “I was delighted with how many people were disgusted by this behavior and left comments to the point they deleted their Facebook pages to keep the reviews from spreading.” Wallender says they removed the Facebook page temporarily because the business conversation became more political than anything else. “These are people from new York, Kentucky, Texas, California who recognize that they’ve never been here before,” Wallender said.

Wallender says, aside from legal reasons, they won’t refuse to serve anyone.

“We will serve no one here as long as it is a safe environment,” Wallender said. “I’ve been in the service industry for a good 15 years and I’ve heard hundreds of conversations I disagree with, but it’s a fact of cleaning it up and having to put it through your task. She took her moral beliefs and Hey, everyone has their moral beliefs. I’m not going to hold this against anyone else. She refused to do the duty we hired her to do. That’s the point in a nutshell. If you’re not going to do your duty, you won’t have to work that night. We’ll just send you home.

But Spencer says there are things she just can’t let go of.

“Ignoring hate and ignoring people saying that is not neutral,” Spencer said. “It allows hate to happen in your institution and I don’t think it was appropriate so I left.

Turning a blind eye to hate is as bad as saying hateful things, in my opinion.”

Spencer says she is filing a complaint with the equal employment opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Ownership with Fat Joe says that if an employee refused to serve a transgender person, they would send that server home for the same reason. They say some of the only reasons they would refuse services is because someone is too drunk, aged or causing a disturbance that requires a patron to accompany out.