Burger King staff yell and swear at Deaf man ordering dinner for his kids

BARRY Kay just wanted to order dinner for his kids.

The Christchurch builder had written his order in big letters on a piece of paper for the Burger King drive-through, as he had done before. Kay is Deaf* and cannot use the intercom. But when he handed over his order at the window on Friday, the operator told him to go inside.

Kay gestured that he had forgotten his mask and could not. The operator said no and shut the window, Kay told Sunday News via sign language, with his wife interpreting by his side. ‘‘I was shocked. This had never happened to me before.’’

Kay waited. The operator opened the window and told him to move his car. Kay gestured that he wanted his order and turned the engine off. Drivers behind him were beeping their horns.

The operator started yelling and swearing at him, Kay said – while he is profoundly Deaf, he lip-reads and picks up tone of voice through body language and facial expressions.

Another staff member asked him to move his car. ‘‘I said: ‘No, I have come to order dinner for my kids’,’’ Kay said.

The staff gave up and he finally got his order. But it was wrong.

He told the staff member the order was wrong and he had been overcharged, which made her ‘‘very angry with me’’, Kay said.

‘‘I just had to drop it and leave because I didn’t want to make them even more angry.

‘‘I just couldn’t believe it. What is a drive-through? It doesn’t matter if you are Deaf, you’re hearing, you are disabled – you should be allowed to go through the drivethrough. Whether you use your phone to communicate or a bit of paper. It’s simple.’’

Burger King NZ head of marketing Andrea Spearman said the company contacted Kay to apologise: ‘‘Our team member has not handled the situation as we would have liked them to and we have followed up with the team at Burger King Shirley, and across our wider network, to ensure that should a member of the Deaf community come through the drivethrough that we are able to handle their order safely.’’

The company also contacted Deaf Aotearoa to discuss safe order-taking under Covid-19 restrictions. Hospitality venues had strict Covid-19 guidelines to adhere to, including drivethrough windows remaining closed, Spearman said.

Deaf Aotearoa chief executive Lachlan Keating said Deaf people often struggled to order at drivethroughs before Covid-19, and the pandemic should not be used as an excuse for that.

Kay’s experience, and problems Deaf people faced at drivethroughs, was discrimination, he said, and Burger King needed to train staff on accessibility.

‘‘I have personally avoided the drive-through because I do not like the intercom system.’’

If drive-through outlets had a self-service station outside where people could order it would solve the problem, Keating said. ‘‘This is universal design thinking – if it works for one group of people, it will work for others, too.’’

Staff can be very helpful, Keating said, often removing masks so Deaf people can lip-read, using a notepad on the restaurant computer and turning the screen or writing things down on paper.

But it was not uncommon for staff to refuse attempts to communicate with Deaf people, he said.

People are allowed to remove face masks to communicate with Deaf and hard of hearing people so they can lip-read, according to Covid-19 guidelines.

‘It doesn’t matter if you are Deaf, you’re hearing, you are disabled – you should be allowed to go through the drive-through.’ BARRY KAY

* The term ‘‘Deaf’’ – with a capital ‘‘D’’ – is used to refer to people who have been deaf all their lives, or since before they started to talk, and who first communicated in sign language.