A diner owner in Portland, Maine, lost her cool over the weekend and screamed at a toddler who was crying in her restaurant. Now, people all over the Internet are taking sides.
It all started on Saturday at Marcy's Diner in downtown Portland. Owner Darla Neugebauer says a couple came into her restaurant and refused to take their crying 1-year-old child outside even after she told them to do so, according to KVUE. Eventually, Neugebauer screamed at the child.
The child's mother, Tara Carson, complained about the experience in a now-deleted Facebook post. Neugebauer responded in a profanity-laced post that has also been removed. Both messages were captured in a tweet posted by a local journalist:
Neugebauer told WMTW that after 40 minutes of listening to the child cry, she'd had enough.
"I turned around, slammed both hands on the counter, then pointed at the child and said, 'This has got to stop!'" Neugebauer said. "And then the mother screamed at me because I was yelling at her child. You know what, lady? You should have taken the kid outside.”
But Carson said there was no reason to scream at her daughter.
"I turned to my daughter and I was like 'Listen, this is how I'm raising you not to be as an adult. You will never be like this when you get older,'" Carson told local ABC affiliate KVUE.
Carson also noted that she couldn't have taken her child outside because it was raining.
"It was torrential downpouring yesterday," Carson said. "I’m gonna take my child out in the rain? I don’t think we did anything wrong."
Plenty of commenters have weighed in on the diner's Facebook page. Even though both original posts have been deleted, people are continuing to comment on unrelated posts that describe the diner's daily menu offerings, with some defending Neugebauer's actions and others chastising her.
The diner's phone rang unanswered on Tuesday, and Carson did not immediately return a request for comment.