Local café caught in social media storm
Future of Cambridge Open Space’s weekly meeting causes blowup online
John Cerny said he’s quickly learned the viciousness of social media.
The owner of Melville Café has seen people banding against him and his establishment on social media platforms, including Facebook and TripAdvisor, claiming discrimination after Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region’s Open Space group were told this past Monday that it was mutually agreed Nov. 19 would be the last evening for the group at the café after seven years at that location.
Open Space is a weekly gathering — there are groups in Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge — that “promotes inclusion within the community,” according to the Extend-AFamily website, by getting together for food, fun and conversation.
The Cambridge Open Space group meets at Melville Café every Monday for games and regularly orders food. While the “casual” group is open to anyone, a majority have intellectual or physical challenges.
“For these guys to turn it into us discriminating against people with disabilities, it is unbelievable,” Cerny said. “If the café and our organization and our restaurants are something, we’ve always been extremely inclusive.”
Cerny cited the original intent of the café was never to close it down or limit seating for customers. He has made exceptions for city charity events and for Open Space, which he believes is a positive night out for people with challenges to integrate and be social with the rest of the community. Since the group began though, the attendance has grown to approximately 20 people a week. Melville Café seats about 65, including bar stools.
“We typically don’t section off the café or close it, or really have big groups in there, because, what happens when you have a big group, it does change the dynamics of what the café is. With this group, we thought that it was important enough that we’re OK with it,” he said.
Cerny said in recent talks with Open Space co-ordinator Eli Winterfeld, he expressed that he felt the size of the group had outgrown Melville Café.
“You come into any restaurant or café, and you walk in there as a guest, and you see 50, 60 per cent of it is taken over by another group, and it doesn't matter whether they’re businessmen, ladies filling out crosswords or any group, it certainly changes the dynamics of it and that’s why we stayed away from that.”
When the news was communicated to the group, support workers questioned staff. Carli Belben, a support worker on hand Monday, said she was told by a parent in attendance that staff indicated there had been noise complaints made about the group in the past, and someone had overheard a female customer complain that night about excessive noise.
While Cerny said noise complaints have been made in the past, and while someone may have overheard a complaint from a customer, that had nothing to do with the decision. In fact, discussions about the change had been in the works for “a few weeks.”
“To have a couple people from the group, without having all the information about what was happening, take it, make assumptions after seven years of working with this group and turn it into something so awful — it’s just, in all honesty, disheartening,” Cerny said.
After the blowup, Extend-AFamily executive director Al Mills sent out a Facebook message agreeing the size of the group was the reason for moving it, stating the Open Space group had “outgrown the original intentions of the arrangement” and were grateful for the hospitality they’d received.
“I think all that’s happened here is that our group has essentially been so successful that’s it’s become large enough that it’s kind of overtaken the environment in Melville’s. Perhaps it’s time for us to find a new place,” Mills said.
“(It) has somehow, unfortunately, been interpreted as, to the people who’ve been attending, you’re not welcome here. That’s hard. That was not their intention.” Mills noted it was “possible” there could have been some confusion with the presentation of the news.
“Maybe something that was a peripheral kind of comment became somebody’s focus. And then on social media, some things kind of explode,” Mills said, adding he wasn’t privy to the timeline of the talks between Cerny and Winterfeld.
“Things get kind of out of control sometimes on social media and people that probably have nothing to do with it weigh in because it sounds offensive, and I get that. From being a little closer to the situation, we don’t think there was any ill intent or sense of discrimination.”
Belben, however, finds that explanation hard to believe. She told the Times in the four years she’s been attending Open Space with her client, the number of group members attending, in her mind, hasn't changed much.
“So why all of a sudden is it that we’re too big for the space? Wouldn’t you want your café to be busy and full, and people buying your stuff, and enjoying your café?”
Belben wouldn’t go as far as calling what happened discrimination, but did say uprooting people with intellectual challenges isn’t easy, as they need consistency. She also felt the news could have been communicated better.
“I just don’t understand. Is it that we’re a (formal) group? Is it that there was a noise complaint and you need to address it with us and you haven’t addressed it with us?” Belben asked.
Belben may want to hold those questions until Monday, as she said Cerny will be at Melville Café with answers for people about the move. Cerny has said Melville’s is willing to accommodate the group until they find a new location.
“It’s a good thing,” Mills said. “This is just an unfortunate, I think, hiccup that everybody will recover from well and we’ll have a new place, and it’ll be good.”
Things get kind of out of control sometimes on social media and people that probably have nothing to do with it weigh in because it sounds offensive. AL MILLS Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region executive director