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The Polish deli owner accused of refusing to serve English customers
SourceThe Polish deli owner accused of refusing to serve English customers
A Polish delicatessen is refusing to serve English customers, it was claimed yesterday. The store is said to have turned away a college student and a reporter sent to investigate the story.
Police and council officials have launched an investigation into the alleged racism.
The student, Kaley Leighton, stopped at the store on her way home from sixth-form college in Goole, East Yorkshire.
The 17-year-old said: 'While I was in there looking at the drinks the man working in the shop came over and asked me if I was English.
'When I said I was he said to me "get out of my shop" twice.
'He said it really aggressively and I didn't know what to do because I was on my own, and he was a big man. I just said okay and left. Ifelt angry, upset and embarrassed and couldn't believe what had happened.'
She said she had visited the store because her mother had suggested she try out new things.
The health and social care student spoke to officials at East Riding Council and made a complaint of racism.
Her mother, Julie Eldin, 40, said: 'I was fuming when Kaley told me what had happened.
'I work in a shop and can you imagine what would happen if the boot was on the other foot, and I refused to serve someone because they weren't English? It's just racism.'
Emma Franklin, a reporter on Goole's newspaper, was also told by one of the shop assistants that they did not serve English people. She says he quickly retracted this statement when she revealed who she worked for.
Yesterday, Michail Bak, the owner of the Polski Sklep store, strongly denied refusing to serve anyone for being English and insisted Miss Leighton was mistaken.
'I don't turn anyone away from my shop - I serve Russians, Latvians, Brazilians and Portuguese,' he said. (and English?!?)
A spokesman for East Riding Council said: 'Humberside Police's community cohesion officer and the council's senior policy officer are looking into this and working together to help resolve any issues that may have occurred.'
The store, located on a busy shopping street, is sparsely stocked with tinned food, drinks, pastries and pickles.
Goole is twinned with the Polish town of Zlotow and at the time of the last census in 2001 there were only 60 Poles living in the town.
Numbers have increased significantly since then although there are no official figures available.
A relative of Miss Leighton has set up a Facebook petition to protest about the 'English ban' and by yesterday afternoon 300 people had signed up to it.
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Originally Posted by Lawspeaker
Just like Polish skinhead behaviour in Wales,and some "patriotic" concert in Ireland where played only foreign bands and they played for Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and 2 Irish
I wonder what they singed maybe "it's to many immigrants we don't want any more"
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