Spur ‘bully’ uproar on social media

THE mother featured in a social media video where she was accosted by a Spur patron said she did what she had to to defend herself and the children with her.

What was meant to be a delightful day for a 3-year-old’s birthday with family in a Spur restaurant at The Glen Shopping Mall, south of Joburg, quickly transformed into an aggressive incident that led to a social media storm.

Lebohang Mabuya initially posted a Facebook video on Monday afternoon, expressing her “disappointment” at the restaurant’s staff and management’s handling of the debacle.

In an interview yesterday, Mabuya told how she had to overcome her fear and defend herself and the six children with her from an aggressive “bully”.

She was at the restaurant celebrating her god-daughter’s 3rd birthday with five other children on Sunday.

“One of the kids kept coming back from the play area complaining that another child kept slapping and pinching them. I told him to try to avoid the child – when she went in one direction, you go the other,” she recalled.

Mabuya said that soon afterwards an aggressive man came to her table complaining about her child beating up his daughter. Despite his “imposing” figure and no intervention from the restaurant staff, she said she felt she had to stand up and defend herself “whatever the consequences”.

However, Mabuya said she was not proud and “regretted” her use of foul language in the presence of the children.

Spur chief executive Pierre van Tonder defended his staff.

“Our staff and management were more in a state of shock and that caused them to be a bit slow in their reaction. We have learnt our lesson and we will now be training our staff to better deal with such situations in the future.”

He described the man’s behaviour as “bordering on barbarism”.

“We have investigated the incident with Texamo Spur staff and management, who expressed that they did try to intervene, but were pushed away numerous times by the angry male customer. As soon as the incident escalated, Texamo Spur staff notified The Glen Shopping Mall security,” read a statement.