“They get upset when they feel someone who looks poor or gives a bad image”: They denounce an upscale chain of Mexican restaurants for their racist practices by dividing diners based on their skin color

An investigation was opened in Mexico City over alleged racism after complaints were filed pointing to a restaurant deemed “upscale.”

The comments circulated on social networks reached the office of Mexico City’s head of government, Claudia Sheinbaum.

The investigative process escalated another level: they will file a criminal complaint

On Thursday, March 30, 2023, the official reported that her government will take the Sonora Grill Group restaurant chain to court for “racist discrimination,” El País reported.

“The owners of Sonora Grill do not acknowledge what Copred has investigated (about discrimination). Not only that, they also fake exams and even worse, they fake exams. That’s criminal. Both discrimination and fraud, at least put a signature where it is not,” the head of government told the media.

Complaints about racism and abuse

The complaints have been processed for 7 months. Sheinbaum’s action “is in response to an anonymous complaint filed last August accusing the establishment’s owners of segregating their customers and assaulting their employees.”

The Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination of Mexico City (Copred) “has investigated the matter and concluded that there are widespread practices of segregation and racial discrimination by the Sonora Grill Group, which violate the people’s right to dignity” , declared the head of the organization, Geraldina González de la Vega.

By means of Twitter came a first sign. It was denounced that at one establishment, “in the wealthy Polanco neighborhood, they separated customers based on their skin color.”

It was said that “there was one area called “Gandi”, assuring that “they put people “who are not white”; on the other hand, the mousse area“pure white people and the treatment is completely different”.

Another complaint is about the owner of the restaurant chain. “Even the director of the brand, named Juan Manuel Moreira, gets very upset when they sense someone who looks poor or, in his opinion, gives a bad image to the restaurant,” they point out to the networks.

The workers report that the racist practices reach even the contracted workers, involving mistreatment. “They don’t want short or dark people as door staff, preferably foreigners, white, thin, pleasing to the eye.”

Copred stated that it began investigating anonymous complaints submitted over the Internet.

To do this, he interviewed 11 customers, employees and former employees of the Sonora Grill, visited the place and analyzed the statistical and sociological evidence.

González de la Vega pointed out that “the evidence collected allows us to go beyond the relative legal presumption that the facts denounced are true and that it is reasonable to confirm them by the number of responses in networks, statements and stories received by the diners and ex-employees of the restaurant group.”

He clarified that it was not possible to confirm “the described practice regarding the spaces that people would divide in Gandi and Mousset”.

He confirmed that in order to position its brand and its services, the restaurant group bases its practices “on a racist narrative, selling a service for people of a certain appearance and social status,” published EFE.

what does the restaurant say

From the luxurious building, “files of training against discrimination given to their employees” were displayed.

However, COPRED found “that 27 of them failed to prove their conclusion and five were not registered on the COPRED platform, so they were falsified.”

The restaurant chain has defended its innocence.