An Auckland restaurant has made personal attacks against social media users following an altercation with a tattooed man who they denied service.
The man, who only wants to be identified as Aaron, was asked to leave HeadQuarters Viaduct with his partner because the owner said he didn't fit the "target market".
"[He said] he couldn't serve us anyway because of how heavily tattooed I am, to which I was enraged and hurled some abuse and left," Aaron told Newshub.
The owner, Leo Molloy, told Newshub when Aaron first walked past he "expressed [his] horror to the other staff".
"His tattoos were just scribbles, all over the side of his face, all over his head. It was inappropriate.
"He simply didn't meet the dress code. I was quite polite to him, wasn't fussed, didn't want a confrontation."
But a confrontation followed, Mr Molloy says - alleging Aaron continued to throw abuse from outside the building.
"After he left he was spitting on me and the front entrance, along with his girlfriend or some other variation of a species."
But it was later on social media that owner Mr Molloy started taking digs at users based on their appearance, saying he assumed Aaron was "a neo-nazi type".
Mr Molloy, using the HeadQuarters Viaduct account, took aim at one of Aaron's friends' dyed hair.
"Can I shout you a decent hair job sometime? I've seen parrots with better colour schemes love," the bar's official Instagram page said.
"It's either nice people dressed well or a couple of inked up punters who seem to have been missing a colouring book when they were kids so they scribbled all over themselves."
The inflammatory comments have since been deleted, and the page has posted a picture hoping to prove they don't discriminate against tattoos.
Mr Molloy says there's a difference between "scribbles" and "art", and he stands by his comments.
"I have all the power in the world to impose values. I have all the power. I own the company.
"We do big numbers here and we have a certain type of person we market towards and it doesn't involve people with scribbles.
"I don't care. It's my establishment."
Aaron says his tattoos are a collection of artwork from artists "all over the world".
"People always make assumptions, I can't control the way people think but to turn someone away because of their appearance, especially in this country where there are a lot of heavily tattooed people… it's just a bit absurd. It's 2017."
Newshub.
