Coffee shop ejects man for 'very racist' rant at Muslim woman. Good call, chain says
A Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shop in Riverside, California, refused service to a man after he harassed a Muslim woman wearing a traditional niqab head covering. And now the shop's parent company has weighed in on the incident.
In a video posted to Twitter, the man asks the woman, who is standing in line behind him: "'Is this Halloween or something?' "
The woman is heard asking him why he said that, to which he responds, "Because I want to." When she asks whether he knows she's a Muslim, he says he does. Then she asks him what his problem is with that.
"I don't like it, how's that? I don't like it because I don't like your religion and it says to kill me and I don't want to be killed by you. How's that?" he says.
"Get out of here! F---ing racist!" a customer can be heard saying on the video. The customer, identified as Barry Landau by NBC 4, told the station that a woman joined the man in yelling at the Muslim woman, but that wasn't caught on video.
"The problem is these people were attacking essentially a girl who did nothing, simply because she was wearing her religion," he told the station.
At the end of the video, a supervisor refuses to serve the man coffee. When the Muslim woman asks why, the supervisor says, "because he is disrupting a public place and being very racist."
The incident took place Friday, according to Fox News.
In a statement to CBS, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf appears to stand behind the supervisor's decision, saying: "We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discrimination of any kind, and have the right to refuse service to any person who makes customers or team members feel endangered in any way."
The incident stands in contrast to one at a Starbucks in Philadelphia last month, when an employee called police on two black men who were waiting at a table. The company apologized to the men in a statement, and all of its U.S. stores and corporate offices will close May 29 to train employees about racial bias.
On social media, many praised the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf supervisor for refusing to serve the man.
One person tweeted: "Props to that supervisor calmly explaining the reason for denying service without escalating things further." Another wrote: "Big round of applause to the victim, to the person defending her from the background and to @TheCoffeeBean."
This story was originally published May 15, 2018 at 6:24 PM with the headline "Coffee shop ejects man for 'very racist' rant at Muslim woman. Good call, chain says."