A Florida mom says her family was kicked out of Universal’s Epic Universe theme park after a misunderstanding involving her autistic daughter.
Nikki Daou was accused of shoplifting and temporarily banned from Universal property, according to a letter sent by its lawyers. Daou told USA TODAY she’d taken her daughter outside of a crowded shop in an effort to avoid a meltdown in late December.
At the time, her then 6-year-old, whom she described as “severely autistic,” was holding onto a keychain they hadn’t yet purchased, but intended to. Daou’s husband, Alain – who is also disabled and uses a wheelchair – removed the item’s tags and stayed behind to pay for it.
“She just clung to it. You know, she started saying, ‘My Mario, my Mario, my Mario.’ Repetition is a big thing in in her world,” Daou recalled. “We’ve learned you don’t take things that (she’s) become infatuated with.”
Daou also knew what could happen if she and her daughter stayed in the store much longer. “Within a matter of one to two minutes, she (can go) from being calm, cool and collective to throwing herself on the floor, hitting herself, hitting others, banging her head onto the floor, onto the wall,” Daou said, adding that her daughter had already one meltdown that trip, while waiting to get a disability accommodation pass from the resort.
They were just outside the shop when Daou said a plain-clothed security guard approached her and said she’d been caught shoplifting and needed to leave with him. Daou said she tried explaining the situation, and her husband came out too, but “He just wasn’t listening.”
She said the guard not only took the keychain but “he’s dangling it in front of my child, and she’s screaming ‘my Mario, my Mario.’” She said her husband bought two other keychains, since the guard confiscated the first one, and showed the guard the receipt, to no avail.
Universal did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
Daou said she was taken in for additional questioning at the theme park. “At that point I’m sobbing. I’m terrified,” she said. She explained the situation to another security officer.
“He goes out for maybe two minutes, comes back in and he gives me three papers and he says from this point you have been trespassed from Universal and any of its affiliates, parking garages, CityWalk, you know, and we have Orange County Sheriffs on the way to escort you off of the premises, and you will be receiving a fine in the mail that you need to pay.”
She said sheriff’s officers did arrive, but let them leave without an escort. However, Daou said the park took away her husband’s wheelchair and her daughter’s disability stroller, which they’d rented from the park. They had to take turns carrying their daughter and their personal items out.
“She’s hitting and kicking me as I’m holding her, hitting and kicking Alain,” Daou said, adding that her husband’s disability already makes it painful to walk. Meanwhile, she said they were worried because they were staying on Universal property and had taken resort transportation to the park.
“I’m like, ‘OK, well, I just got trespassed. Can I get on the shuttle? Can I go back to our hotel?” she said.
“They called me, of course,” said Rick Block, an attorney at Morgan & Morgan, where Daou is his paralegal. “I told her just stay in the room, don’t go out … and so they had to wait the entire night wondering, ‘Are we going to be thrown out or arrested because we’re violating the the trespass citation?’”
They left the next morning, on their daughter’s seventh birthday, and a few days later received a letter from Universal’s lawyers, demanding $200 for a civil claim.
“I issued a letter in response to that, demanding certain things including that some money be donated to an autistic charity that the Daous had picked out, an apology letter, obviously rescission of the trespass … Nothing of any financial benefit to them,” Block said.
Block noted that the family had already spent hundreds of dollars at Universal before being accused of stealing the keychain and was not asking for any compensation.
“Intent is a part of the theft statute in Florida.” he said. “So, if you want to err on the side of Universal that she shouldn’t have left with possession, walked outside – again, she’s not leaving, she’s not running off, they’re waiting for Alain to pay for the damn keychain – but if you argue that she shouldn’t have done that, OK, but there’s no intent to deprive Universal of its property, and that’s the fundamental basis of a civil theft under the statute.”
Block said a Universal representative reached out expressing interest in talking to him, but he’s not heard from them yet. Speaking on behalf of the Daou family, he said they want employees to receive more training on interacting with disabled guests and their families.
Universal Orlando has already partnered with the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards on disability access cards. While IBCCESS can’t comment on this particular incident, its President Meredith Tekin told USA TODAY, “in general we know that all staff in any setting that work with the public need autism training on how to navigate difficult situations – there is often a lot of potential for miscommunication or misunderstanding in these scenarios on all sides, unfortunately, and training is key in helping to understand everyone.”