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Raw deal? Man sues all-you-can-eat sushi joint for discrimination

A California man says he got a raw deal at a Los Angeles sushi restaurant, and now he’s suing the owner for $4,000, the L.A. Times reports.David Martin wanted to take advantage of a $28 all-you-can-eat sushi deal at A Ca-Shi Sushi, a restaurant in the affluent Studio City section of Los Angeles. Martin chowed down, but wasn’t willing to clean his plate. He was eating just the fish, and leaving
Katsumi Kasahara / AP

A California man says he got a raw deal at a Los Angeles sushi restaurant, and now he’s suing the owner for $4,000, the L.A. Times reports.

David Martin wanted to take advantage of a $28 all-you-can-eat sushi deal at A Ca-Shi Sushi, a restaurant in the affluent Studio City section of Los Angeles. Martin chowed down, but wasn’t willing to clean his plate. He was eating just the fish, and leaving the rice behind  -- which meant what he really wanted was all-you-can-eat sashimi.

Martin told the owner, Jay Oh, that he had diabetes and couldn’t eat the rice. Oh told him that the sushi deal had to include the rice, and offered Martin a $25 deal on two orders of sashimi. He refused and was asked to pay the a la carte prices on the sushi he’d already ordered.

"The rice is part of the all-you-can-eat sushi," Oh told the L.A. times. "If you only eat the fish, I would go broke."

Martin claims he was being discriminated against “on the basis of his disability” and filed suit seeking $4,000 for “humiliation, embarrassment and mental anguish."

Oh said that the suit is a shakedown and says he plans to go to trial despite legal fees.

"I have to fight this. Why do I have to give this person money? I didn't do anything wrong," he told columnist David Lazarus.

Lazarus, who says that he also has diabetes, agreed with Oh.

“If it's Oh's policy that you eat everything you're served if you want the all-you-can-eat price, then that's the policy,” he wrote. “If you don't like it, don't go there again.”

What do you think? Should A Ca-Shi have allowed Martin to eat just sashimi for the price of sushi?