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Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and Media
Topics: Parenting
Claire Reid
A new mum claims a cafe owner ‘aggressively’ told to breastfeed ‘more discreetly’, prompting her to storm out.
Molly Musto, 22, was out with fiancé Thomas Veale and seven-week-old Bobby Musto-Veale last Thursday (20 April) when they stopped off at Gallagher's of Barnsley in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
But Molly said as they pushed the pram through the door she was approached by the cafe’s co-owner who told her to breastfeed more ‘discreetly’.
The new mum said she was told she could stay if she ‘adhered’ to the rule but refused and stormed out.
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However, the cafe disputes her version of events.
Molly said: "We opened the [café] door. Firstly the woman asked 'how are you?' and then she said 'I need to have a word with you'.
"We hadn't even sat down, she came to the door. It was one of the two owners.
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"I expected it to be something like 'oh there's a bit of a food shortage' I didn't expect it was going to be personal.
"She said 'you're welcome to breastfeed but you need to be more discreet about it like the other women who come here. If you can adhere to that then stay'.
"I was like 'no I'm not adhering to that'. I'm going to assume it's something like cover her head, but I don't know.
"She was rather confrontational about it, it left me shaken.
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"As she was saying that I was angry to be honest to begin with because she's seven weeks old.
"If she needs feeding, she needs feeding. But I also felt uncomfortable.
"We came somewhere that we knew we wanted to sit and have food and the next minute, we felt like we had to leave. We weren't welcome."
However, the cafe has since said breastfeeding mums are welcome and claimed there are 'untruths' in Molly's account.
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A spokesperson for Gallagher's of Barnsley said: "We regularly have quite a few ladies breastfeeding, so this is nothing new to us.
"The second time she came in, a member of staff served her and she was quite off with the member of staff.
"They brought a lot of shopping in with them. They had to leave it all around the table.
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"They had no disturbance [during] the breastfeeding, and then left.
"However, on leaving, the staff member approached her and said 'what about your rubbish?' and she said, 'well that's for you to deal with', and walked off quite angrily.
"The member of staff approached her [next time she came in] and said, 'there's a couple of things I need to chat to you about before you move forward'.
"She spoke to her about the rubbish and her behaviour towards staff, and said, 'just to point out that when you were here last time, two members of the public had approached us and said that they felt it wasn't really discreet [how] you're breastfeeding.'
"The staff member went to get some menus and get them sat down, and the woman said, 'I'm not breastfeeding discreetly', turned around and stormed out of the place.
"It's not us. It's passing on the comment of a customer.
"When she was in at the time when she made people feel uncomfortable, she says she wasn't spoken to then. [That's because] the law says she can't be spoken to then.
"There has been a hate campaign against our business being raised by somebody on social media.
"However, we are getting a lot of support from breastfeeding women who are still coming into our cafe.
"I would fully understand if five or six people went onto social media and said this is a horrendous place to be, but that is not the case. This is one person who said they were unhappy.
"We have resolved the issue, there are untruths in the statement and we would just like to move on from this. We welcome anyone breastfeeding in our premises."