KITCHENER — Waterloo Regional Police are investigating after a video of a man and his dog being forcefully removed from a local restaurant has been shared widely online.
In the video, the man is heard saying the dog is his service animal.
On Wednesday evening, police attended Milton’s Grill & Bar on King Street East in Kitchener in response to the incident.
The video is 4:30 minutes long and shows a man being confronted by two other men telling him to leave. At times, the men are seen grabbing and even dragging him by his feet. His dog stayed largely out of the frame.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” the man is heard screaming in the video.
“Yes you have. You’re f-ing disrupting my business,” one of the men replied. “You’re trespassing.”
People can be heard in the background calling for the men to stop touching him. “You’re hurting him! Stop! Just leave him alone.”
It’s unclear what occurred between the two parties leading up to the start of this video. The Record has reached out to family members of the man who was told to leave, but has not heard back.
A Record journalist went into the restaurant to get comment from the owners, but a person working behind the bar said the owner wasn’t speaking to reporters.
She said the restaurant disconnected its phone service due to the number of calls it was receiving. The website
Miltonsrestaurant.ca was also suspended on Thursday afternoon.
As of 7 p.m. on Thursday, the video had been shared more than 11,000 times on Facebook and has received more than 5,300 comments. Most of those comments express disgust toward the restaurant.
Police said officers received a report of a disturbance at the restaurant at 6:40 p.m. Police said they are aware of the video and are investigating the circumstances around it. No additional details were provided.
Stacey Disch went to Milton’s on Thursday afternoon to voice her concern and disgust with the owner. She said over the past few years she promoted the business to friends and has come to know the owner from eating there so often. She was in disbelief when she saw the video.
“We supported him through the entire pandemic,” she said, adding the owner needs to publicly apologize before she’ll ever go back.
Sarah Hamilton and her friend Alexandra Bower also came to the restaurant carrying large signs to express their anger after watching the video. Hamilton said the man in the video has been identified as having autism.
“I was just enraged. It really hurt me,” Hamilton said. She has a 12-year-old son who has autism and said the way the man with the service dog was treated was very concerning.
“It makes me think of my son, and what he might go through and how he can’t even be safe to go into a restaurant.”
The two walked around the building holding their signs in silent protest, making sure to not step on the property.
She said there needs to be further education on how to treat people with autism or any other disabilities. Training should be mandatory for those working directly with the public, she said.
Bower said it’s unclear what happened before the video began, but there was no reason for staff to physically grab the man like they did — especially someone who came in with service animal, someone who may have a disability of some sort.
“They could have just called the police. It didn’t have to escalate the way it did,” she said.
Others have shown up to the restaurant parking lot, just to see the place in person. One couple said they planned on calling in a food order and not picking it up. On social media, people are encouraging others to leave negative reviews.
On Yelp, at 3:30 p.m., the restaurant had 81 reviews. Of those, 58 of those were posted after Wednesday evening.
Craig Sears spent several hours pacing the sidewalk in front of the restaurant with a sign that read “educate” on one side, and “don’t support violence” on the other. He has a son with autism and said he found the video very disturbing.
“Instead of going physical with this and escalating the situation, call the cops. Let them do the job,” he said. “Why are these two men dragging this guy around, threatening to kick him in the head. It’s the most insane thing I’ve seen in my life.”
Throughout the video, the men are swearing at the man, threatening him and saying he’s trespassing. At one point in the video, after dragging the man by his feet, one of the men says “You f-in kicked me. I’m f-ing bleeding there, you assaulted me you little f-. I should kick you right in the head right now, f-ing knock you out, you little f-”
Sears said he felt he needed to do something in response to the video. Marching up and down the sidewalk, cars honked their horns. Some drivers waved or nodded.
“So many people have no idea and are not educated regarding people with autism. It’s shocking,” he said.
“If that was my child, I can only imagine what he must be going through. What is wrong with people?”
At 6 p.m., a group of around 10 people, including parents and children, lined up on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. People dining inside were seen peering out at the group.
Karen Nancarrow said she has an autistic daughter and came out to protest with her in mind.
“You messed with the wrong parent group here,” she said. “We’re worried enough about our kids going out into the world. You’ve hit to the hearts of every parent of a child with autism.”
John Kid came out with his partner and their child with autism. He said the video “disgusted” him. He said it was “devastating” thinking of his own child growing up and being treated like that.
At press deadline, police said there were no updates and the investigation was ongoing.
