{"id":70132,"date":"2016-02-05T02:09:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T07:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=70132"},"modified":"2016-02-05T02:09:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T07:09:26","slug":"apology-issued-to-decorated-war-veteran-kicked-out-of-winnipeg-shopping-mall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/02\/05\/apology-issued-to-decorated-war-veteran-kicked-out-of-winnipeg-shopping-mall\/","title":{"rendered":"Apology issued to decorated war veteran kicked out of Winnipeg shopping mall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-65579\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-65579\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg\" alt=\"Untitled design-2\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Untitled-design-2-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>WINNIPEG\u2014A Winnipeg shopping mall has issued an apology to a decorated Manitoba war veteran and aboriginal elder who was told to get out last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Meconse, 74, said he and a friend sat down to tea in Portage Place&#8217;s food court on Saturday when a security guard approached him and told him he had half an hour before he would have to leave.<\/p>\n<p>Meconse said he then went to get a plate of food and as he was eating, the guard returned and told him he had to leave immediately.<\/p>\n<p>The incident prompted dozens of supporters to stage a rally in support of Meconse at the mall on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, general manager David Stone said he wanted to extend \u201cour most sincere apologies\u201d to a man \u201cwho has proudly served our country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the mall has decided to do away with its 30-minute food court time limit, \u201cgiven that our many members of our community use (it) as a place to meet friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meconse joined the military at the age of 20 and served for a decade at posts in Germany and Cyprus.<\/p>\n<p>When he eventually came home to work as a corrections officer, it was as a decorated soldier with a chest full of medals, and later he was made a member of the Order of Manitoba.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt felt like I was degraded,\u201d Meconse said Wednesday. \u201cAll the things I&#8217;ve done for the public, for our people, been in the armed forces, but this little guy (the guard) has no respect for anybody.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re not animals (but) sometimes we&#8217;re treated like it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WINNIPEG\u2014A Winnipeg shopping mall has issued an apology to a decorated Manitoba war veteran and aboriginal elder who was told &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":65579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,9094,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-70132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-human-interest","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}