Buffet Refused To Serve Him, So She Started A Homeless Fund

CARLSBAD, NM — Syann Armienta is outraged. When she tried to buy a homeless man lunch at a restaurant in Carlsbad, they were turned away because of the way he was dressed and smelled, she says. Now, she's raising money and trying to make a difference in the small city in southeast New Mexico.

The man was sitting outside a donut shop when Armienta saw him. She knew he was hungry and she couldn't just pass him by. So she decided to step up and buy him lunch. A buffet would be perfect — it's all-you-can-eat, she figured.

But the restaurant, Bamboo Garden, turned them away.

“I walked in behind him and I said I would like to pay for his meal and a drink," she told WNCN-TV. "She said, ‘No I can’t do that.'"

Armienta, 25, a lifelong resident of Carlsbad, asked the manager why they couldn't dine at the restaurant. The manager replied that it was because of how he was dressed. It was also the smell.

“I was like, ‘So you’re telling me he can’t eat here because he’s not dressed?’ and she said, ‘Yes and the odor,’” Armienta told the news outlet.

She was denied a to-go plate too, she says.

Armienta said in a Facebook post last week — which has been shared nearly 2,000 times — she was "seriously flabbergasted" by the encounter. The somber man dropped his head and told Armienta it was all right.

But to Armienta, it wasn't ok. She was "heartbroken and pissed off."

"People forget that God disguises himself in many different forms and people!" she says in the post. "You think if He was here that He’d be sitting on top of the mountain eating with those showered and finely dressed?! NO! He’d be sitting with those just like this man!"

Bamboo Garden told WNCN-TV they have served the man multiple times and can refuse service to anyone.

Now, Armienta is taking matters into her own hands.

She has raised more than $1,000 on an online crowdfunding website to support local homeless efforts in Carlsbad. The post on GoFundMe says they want to "sound the alarm that mistreating these individuals is disgusting and not tolerated." Donations will support local efforts to help care for the homeless in Carlsbad.

"We will reach out to local businesses and help them pay-it-forward as well as raise funds for a mobile shower unit," the post says.

You can donate to the cause here.

Armienta said in a video posted on Tuesday she isn't encouraging people to boycott the restaurant. She doesn't want the homeless fund "I Am Carlsbad" to be associated with hate.

"I want 'I Am Carlsbad' to be something positive in our community," she says. "I don't want anything negative from it."

The fund aims to raise awareness about the homeless and encourage people to see homeless individuals as people.

"We pass them every day," she says. "They're there. I just want to shed light on that."

She adds: "You see them, talk to them. They're people like me and you."

GoFundMe is a Patch promotional partner.

Photo credit: GoFundMe