ROXBORO, N.C. (WNCN) — A police officer and veteran was refused service recently at a Roxboro Cook Out.
The local fast-food chain said the two employees involved are off the job.
The incident happened around 12:30 a.m. Thursday.
The Roxboro Police Chief David Hess said one of his officers was on duty and in uniform when he came to the Cook Out to get food.
“You’re supposed to serve everybody. It’s Cook Out, come on now,” Kinston Leake, a Cook Out employee said.
Taren Woods said she was the manager working that morning.
“I didn’t know nothing — that it was that serious until the next day I heard the cashier got fired because she didn’t take the cop’s order,” Woods said.
Woods confirms the cashier refused to help the officer.
She said that cashier asked a fellow employee to step in. Woods said that’s allowed under company policy.
When that second employee went to take the order, she explained the officer wanted to know what happened to the first cashier. He then walked away.
Woods said she was working in the back at the time and didn’t know what had happened.
“He told me he had to let me go because I didn’t take control of the situation, saying how I should have gone outside to take the cop’s order,” Woods said. “Mind you it was midnight and policy states that we’re not allowed outside the building after 9:45. So why would I go outside to chase down a cop.”
Posts about the incident soon appeared on Facebook. Some of them blamed the cashier and the manager.
Woods came to work Friday only to learn she was out of a job. She said she’s worked there for 10 years.
“It is frustrating because it’s a lie. And they got all this stuff stirred up. And I lost my job and I got four kids and it’s Christmas time. So yeah, that’s not fair at all,” she said.
CBS 17 reached out to Cook Out for a response and haven’t heard back.
Hess wasn’t available for an interview Monday evening. He said his office didn’t ask for those employees to be fired, but that Cook Out took those actions on its own.
