At the end of last July, the restaurant chain was involved in a controversy for alleged practices of discrimination, after Terror Restaurantes MX published on Twitter “a report” that Sonora Grill Prime Masaryk accommodated clients, based on their physical appearance and skin color.
“The restaurant is divided into two sections: They call it Gandhi and mousse. At Gandhi they seat people who are not Caucasian, even the brand’s director, Juan Manuel Moreira, gets very upset if they seat someone who looks poor or gives the restaurant a bad image, according to him. In Mousset, purely Caucasian people and the treatment is completely different”, the publication reads.
We received the report that in Sonora Prime Grill Masaryk de @SonoraGGroup they divide clients depending on their physical appearance and skin color.
The good thing is here we are the ones who divide… pic.twitter.com/j8OEb0MZDA
— Terror Restaurants MX (@TerrorRestMX)
July 31, 2022
Two days later, the company issued a press release denying discriminatory practices.
The Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination of Mexico City (Copred) opened an investigation in August 2022, after the publication of the tweet, and asked the company that its managers and employees take training to prevent discrimination.
Now the government of Mexico City says that the company presented 22 failing certificates and five apocryphal, out of a total of 52 that it had to deliver to COPRED.
“It is a criminal offense to discriminate and falsify documents,” Sheinbaum told a news conference.
▶️ The #Head Of Government indicated that a criminal complaint will be filed against Sonora Grill Group due to the discriminatory practices it commits with diners, in addition to finding 27 failing certificates offered by @COPRED_CDMX of which 5 were apocryphal. pic.twitter.com/SrSkmAXWWA
– Government of Mexico City (@GobCDMX)
March 30, 2023
Sonora Grill Group reiterated in the statement published after the announcement of the CDMX Government its “entire willingness to assist the authority to clarify this matter in an environment of respect, construction and dialogue.”