Delhi hotel stops woman from entering for wearing saree

New Delhi : A Delhi hotel has been accused of not letting a woman enter to its restaurant because she was wearing a saree as they do not consider it to be a smart casual.

Journalist Anita Choudhary, shared the incident on her social media pages with a video clip where a hotel staff can be heard saying, "we only allow smart casuals and saree is not a smart casual."

In a Facebook post, Mrs Anita wrote, she was not allowed to enter the Aquila restaurant at Ansal Plaza here on Sunday, because she was wearing a saree.

"In one of the restaurants in Delhi, saree is not considered to be a smart outfit. The restaurant's name is Aquila. We argued over saree, and a lot of excuses were made, but I was not allowed to enter the restaurant, because the Indian attire -- saree is not a smart outfit.

"I have never been insulted like this. I also feel hurt," she wrote.

After the post went viral on social media, the restaurant received a huge backlash from the people.

Aquila has apologized for the remarks made by the gate manager and said that her views do not represent the mindset of the hotel.

"To tackle the situation and request the guest to leave, one of our gate managers made a statement on sarees not being a part of our smart casual dress code and our whole team apologises for the same," the statement said.

"Aquila is a homegrown brand and each member of the team stands tall as a proud Indian. Our gate manager's statement in no way is a representation of the entire team's view on the dress code. Nowhere in our company policy does it say that we will refuse entry to anybody in ethnic wear.

"While we have all the right to take steps for the violence by the guest against our staff, we have chosen to maintain peace so far but in accordance with our policy of maintaining transparency with our stakeholders we are now issuing this statement," Aquila said.