Outrage as restaurant stays open after woman’s body was found in bathroom

An American grill-style restaurant in Maryland has provoked outrage after it stayed open while a dead woman’s body was in the bathroom, reports say.

Jasper’s, the restaurant, was full and seating customers on Wednesday when police were called to the business with a report of a woman found unconscious and, as Fox5 reported, was thought to have died of a heart attack.

While the women’s bathroom was closed off, the men’s bathroom remained open and the Jasper’s in Largo, Maryland, remained open, a police report seen by the DC-based news outlet said.

The restaurant’s owner, Fred Rosenthal, was reported as saying that the woman’s body was removed two hours later through a side door.

“It’s not something that we are accustomed to,” one of the restaurant’s managers, Miguel Perea, said in comments to Fox5. “At the moment, we thought we were doing the right thing, and we realised maybe we were wrong.”

Still, one Largo resident told Fox5: “They stayed open, that’s kind of irresponsible”.

Meanwhile on social media, a Twitter post condemning Jasper’s went viral on Thursday with more than 15,700 likes.

“A women died in Jaspers (LARGO MD) restaurant yesterday in the bathroom (cardiac arrest) but let’s talk about how the establishment didn’t close the restaurant and let her body stay in the bathroom until closing..NEVER GOING THERE AGAIN,” tweeted Tori Monshae.

She continued: “Like that’s just some money hungry a** s***…on top of that all the servers were under distress so the service was just trash (it’s kinda already expected tho) but like I just would never go to that ghetto a** place again.”

Jasper’s told Fox5 that they were in the process of apologising to the family of the deceased woman and were trying to see how they can support them in any way,

“If they feel that we disrespected them in any way, that is not what we were trying to do,” Mr Perea added of the family and Jasper’s customers to Fox5.

Jasper’s says in a statement on its website: “Last night one of our customers tragically passed away within our establishment. On behalf of our ownership, management, and staff we send the sincerest and most heartfelt support and condolences to the deceased’s family. We will be reaching out to the family to see if there is any way we can support them in this time of grief.”

“We immediately contacted county authorities and followed their protocol and procedure. Under the authorities’ guidance, we closed the area to patrons until all emergency services could arrive and followed the direction of the authorities.”