Can restaurants refuse to cut food into smaller portions?

If you're unable,because of an injury or an illness, to perform common tasks like cutting up your own food, that's a disability. It doesn't matter that the condition is temporary; a temporary disability is still a disability.

Under Equal Status Act 200 s. 4, a refusal or failure by a service provider to do whatever is reasonable to accommodate the needs of a person with a disability by providing special treatment or facilities is discrimination, if the person cannot avail themselves of the serivce without that special treatment or facilities.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a restauranteur to serve food already cut up. They already plate up and present the food as a matter of routine; cutting it up is the work of a few extra seconds and any kitchen will have both the staff and the tools required for the job. The Act provides that refusal to provide a service is not reasonable unless providing the service would impose a more than nominal cost on the service provider; I don't see any cost at all here.

So the question comes down to; is the person in the cast unable to eat at the restaurant if the restauranteur refuses to cut up their food for them?

The only argument I think the restauranteur could mount would be: the person in the cast could avail of the restaurant's services because they were accompanied by a friend who would cut up the food for them. But "I don't have to provide this service because there is somebody else on hand who will provide it" is not a strong argument; am I excused from providing a wheelchair ramp because a wheelchair user is accompanied by someone who is willing to bump the chair up a flight of steps? And, of course, if the person in the cast had come to the restaurant alone, the argument wouldn't be available at all.

So, yeah, a restauranteur in this situation does have an obligation to cut up the food. And, while some might think providing a legal remedy for this is overkill and is absurd, what is even more absurd is that a restauranteur would refuse to cut it up in the first place. And yet in this case there was a refusal.

Yesterday's case about loud music relates to a complaint of discrimination occurring on premises licensed under the Intoxicating Liquor Acts. The WRC declined to rule on the complaint because complaints about discrimination on licensed premises have to go to the District Court. This has no relevance to complaints about discrimination not on licensed premises. (We don't know whether the "local café" the OP mentions was licensed or not.)

I agree that the issue is whether the OP was in fact unable to avail of the service if the food wasn't cut up for them. The OP has better information on this than either of us does and they say they weren't able to; that's why they asked to have the food cut up. And if that played out in a court or tribunal hearing, it would be up to the defendant to rebut the OP's evidence on this point. The server's on-the-spot assessment that the OP should be able to do it (if that is what happened) wouldn't be enough.

(Nor, as a matter of good practice, should servers be put in the position of making assessments of this kind. If the customer asks for a particular accommodation then as a rule you should accept that they need it, and the only question you should be asking yourself is whether it's reasonable to provide it.)

My parents spent years trying to get us all to use a knife. My brother still doesnt use one. We seemed to have no problems at all not using a knife to cut food. In fact one hand would be wrapped around the phone while we use the other to hold a fork and cut our food either with the fork turned sideways or by putting lumps of it on the fork and biting what you are eating off.

I only really started to use a knife properly when I went to college. But I could certainly get by with eating food one handed. Thousands do. People with broken arms, wrists, even people with an arm missing can all eat fine with one hand.

I just spoke with friend who happened to be born with just one arm and mentioned this to him. He did not want to believe. He said he would drop dead from shame having to ask someone at the retaurant to cut up his food for him. Btw he does everything even driving with just one arm.

my bestie was born with one hand. She manages 99% of the time and doesn’t order stuff she can’t manage if she’s on her own. So no solo steaks.

filled pancakes might be messy to cut with the side of a fork, so I suggest you choose something else if you are eating solo for the next while.

I don’t know why they didn’t just take it away and chop it up, but depends on how busy they were in the kitchen maybe. Don’t think front of house staff will have access to the kitchen to do prep work.

Having an arm in a cast isn't a disability, its a bit of a temporary inconvenience. It happens to thousands of people, and they generally make the best of it.

Leaving aside the fact that it may have been possible to get the food cut up but the restaurant server didn't have the gumption or experience to enable it, or that it might have been something to do with the 'poor me' attitude and the smirk that the OP had when asking; most people in their situation would have a. ordered something that didn't need cutting up, or b. accepted that their friend would help, or c. said ok, I will go elsewhere, or d. eaten it American style cutting it with the side of a fork - its a pancake for heavens sake!

Its more like - my life is boring, this cast is a great bit of drama, I am going to milk it for all I can.

What smirk? There's no mention of a smirk or a poor me attitude in the op. A bit of common sense would suggest that obviously someone who has been living with one arm/hand for 20 years will have adapted and be more able to manage than someone who is temporarily one handed.

Playing devil's advocate, I am not too sure any discrimination occurred.

From preliminary " The Acts outlaw discrimination in all services that are generally available to the public".

If cutting up food was a service the café offered generally to the public but refused for disabled people then it would be guilty of discrimination. But , I assume the café offers no such service.

However, I agree, the café could have been a lot more accommodating in this instance.

😂All the waiter/waitress needed to do the job was a knife and fork to cut it up. No need whatsover to bring it back to the kitchen or ask the kitchen staff to do it.

Anything is possible these days, but I would think we have reached peak stupidity if I read that a restaurant lost a discrimination case due to not cutting up food for someone with a cast on their arm, there with a friend.