Eatery Fires Manager Who Objected to Actor Drew Droege's Gay Kiss
The Los Angeles restaurant manager who admonished gay actor Drew Droege and his male date for showing affection in public has been fired.Droege and his date were at the El Compadre restaurant in the Echo Park neighborhood Monday evening and had exchanged a few kisses when the manager told them it was a family establishment and such behavior wasn’t allowed.
Droege posted about the incident on social media, and the restaurant’s parent company issued an apology on Instagram, said it welcomed the LGBTQ+ community, and promised to investigate the matter.The company deleted that post, but Wednesday afternoon it put up another saying the manager had been fired. “We want to sincerely apologize for the actions of our manager the night of December 12th,” the new Instagram post said. “This is not representative of our core values at El Compadre, and we wanted to let our customers know that the manager has been terminated.”Droege shared the post on Instagram and Facebook and thanked those who had offered support to him.
He got positive reaction such celebrities as Billy Eichner, Harvey Guillen, and Ben DeLaCreme. Earlier, he had told The Advocate, “I have never been asked not to show love in public.
Sadly, I have dealt with homophobia all my life and thought that a display of affection in Los Angeles was a safe thing to do.”He had found the company’s reaction inadequate, he told The Advocate and other media before the message about the manager’s firing was issued.
